Tri Indy - Sprint Course - TriathlonSprint

for my first tri I'd have to say I was a little disappointed in my performance on the swim. The distance itself wasn't so much the issue because I felt fine swimming the 500 meters, I just wasn't mentally ready to swim with people running into me. It didn't occur to me to practice that and the first time someone swam into me it took me by surprise and didn't handle it very well. I got over it pretty quickly but in the back of my mind I was worried about people running into me and me running into other people.

So much so that my swim stroke suffered because I spent too much time worrying about running into people instead of just focusing on my stroke and my breathing.

Know that I'm going to get ran into and accept that it's just part of racing and get on with my swim. Really concentrate on swimming my race and not let the other outside distractions get in my head.

Train with people swimming over me or into me so I can manage that better come race day.

When I got out of the water I was pretty winded, a little out of breath and feeling light headed. Not sure if that was a result of being sick days leading up to the race or if it was from exertion during the swim. Instead of running to my transition area I had to walk through much of the transition area which I didn't think I was going to have to do.

Once I got to my transition area I had everything laid out pretty well and got into my socks and shoes pretty well. I got to my glasses and helmet pretty well and got out to the bike portion of the race pretty well.

Not sure I'd do too much differently. T1 time would have been better had I not felt so bad coming off the swim.

This is where my race fell apart. I used a HR Zone training program for my race and went into the race with a game plan on how I would use my energy on the bike and the run to make sure I wasn't going too hard too early. As soon as I got out of the water I lost my HR information on my Garmin watch so when I got on the bike I lost my HR information.

On the bike I never got comfortable with how hard I should be going and I'm convinced I went out too hard and by mile 10 or so I was really low on energy and knew the run was going to be a struggle

If I have a problem with my watch to take the 1 minute it actually took me to adjust it to get the information I needed to run a smarter race.

I had trained to take my feet out of my shoes and pedal on top of my shoes so I could get my running shoes on faster, but the conditions were wet and I thought it would make more sense to keep my feet dry by just running with my riding shoes on until I got to transition.

When it came to dismounting off the bike I had no energy to jump off like I had practiced so I just came to a stop and got off the bike. Because I was so tired getting off the bike I had no energy to run with my bike to my transition area.

One of the smart things I did that saved me a couple seconds is I tied my shoes the way I run in them and just slipped them off before the race so I all did was slide my shoes on when it was time to run. I thik it took me like 5 seconds to put both shoes on.

I had trained for the race wearing my riding gloves so come race day I thought I decided to stick with my plan of riding with them on since that is how I had trained and if I had it to do over I would have just gone without the gloves. Messing with the gloves cost me about 15 to 20 seconds in transition.

I've run some 5k's in the past (not part of a triathlon though) and this was the worst race ever. I basically had no energy to run and almost walked the whole 3.1 miles to the finish line. There were some really encouraging competitors that provided encouragment along the way, but I just had a terrible race.

Because I had run in races in the past I thought the run part of the triathlon would be easy and I didn't give my run training as much respect as I should have and when it came time to run, my legs were dead. I also underestimated just how much energy I would have to use swimming and running before my run.

Didn't really warm down other than take in a bunch of fluids and continue walking around in the transition area.


Because I was so concerned about the swim I neglected some of my run training to make sure I could get through the 500 meter swim and that rally hurt me when it came time to run.

The problem I had with my Garmin watch also caused me to use too much energy on the bike.


I said the race didn't start on time, but there were thunderstorms in the area so we didn't start on time for safety reasons.

For my first triatholon I don't think I could have picked a better race. Race check in the day before was well organized and the morning of the race they had everything together for the racers. There were several busy intersections we had to cross on our bikes and the police was out ensuring out safety which was great.

No complaints from me about the event. I'll be back next year to better my time.