Tejas Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This was my longest OWS and I felt like I had prepared pretty well, but I'm still a beginning swimmer and I had predicted a time of about 22 minutes. I actually felt pretty good and never had to back stroke to rest as I had done in my first two races.

My biggest "problem" was running into swimmers slower than me. Everytime I would get a good stroke rhythm going, I would run into someone's feet, and have to come up to look around and lose all my momentum. I repeated this cycle many times. I wasn't really fast enough to break on through cleanly. At about the 3/4 mark, the fast swimmers from the wave behind us had caught up and were passing through.

Despite all this, I had beat my predicted time and felt good coming out of the water, so I was very pleased with my effort. Our age group was the second wave, so we had a clear road ahead of us for the bike.

Increase swim skills and confidence swimming in a crowd. Learn how to draft behind someone slightly faster and work my way through the pack.

My T1 sucks due to wearing socks. I still need socks for running, so I put them on in T1. Even without drying or cleaning the grass off my feet, it takes quite a few seconds to put them on. After the socks and shoes are on, it's helmet and bike and out the gate.

Eliminate the socks. Run training without socks. I did a 20/3 mile brick 2 weeks ago without socks. The bike is no problem, but on the run I got 2 small blisters after 2 miles and decided I didn't want to chance it in a race at this point. Gotta start practicing with the shoes already mounted on the bike pedals.

I felt really good on the bike and passed a bunch of folks. Got passed by ~12 riders. I train on rough, country roads with chip-seal surfaces, so a smooth concrete surface is pure joy.

We had excellent conditions; cool, no wind, and slight cloud cover. The short course combined with riding wet and without a shirt, I didn't sweat for the first 5 miles. Being in an early swim wave meant little bike traffic to contend with until the second loop. I was able to ride aero 90% of the time, averaged 24-25 mph on the straight sections, the 2 hair-pin turns and several 90° corners slowed up the average a little. A couple of bridges with slight elevation changes, but not really "hills". 1 downshift was all that was needed to keep the cadence up.

Ate 2 Clif Bloks that I had stuck to the stem, drank ~12 ounces of Gatoraid Endurance out the aero bottle. All-in-all; an excellent, fun ride.

Not too much, maybe gain more confidence in my bike abilities in future races. Because of the number of riders I was passing, I was "concerned" that I might be going too fast and could risk blowing up on the run. I didn't hold back and went pretty hard anyway, but I kept thinking about it.

Learn to corner faster.

Decent T2. I lost a few seconds racking the bike. A pedal was hanging up on the rack support bar as I was racking and it took me a couple of trys to get it racked properly. No biggie, but it was 5-10 seconds of wrestling with the bike that should not have been expended.

After that, it was; helmet and bike shoes off, running shoes on. Put on the number belt as I ran out of transition.

Not too much, just be smoother and faster.

Felt good starting the run. Running off the bike is no problem (2 bricks a week). They had an aid station coming out of T2, so I grabbed a cup of ice water, took a sip, dumped the rest over my head and hit the course. Found my rhythm and kept it going. The aid station at mile 1 didn't have any cups of water ready, so I skipped that one.

During mile 2 I could tell this was a "slow" run for me. I didn't fade, but I didn't push harder either. Aid station at mile 2 had water ready; got a cup, took a sip, dumped the rest over my head.

I passed a lot of folks and was passed by ~10.

Kept a steady pace through mile 3, but didn't step it up any. It was pretty warm by now, and had a good sweat going. There was a volunteer calling out the 200 yd mark, so I was able to kick it in, finish pretty strong.

About 40 yds before the finish, there was a mat that signalled a computer that allowed the announcer to call your name as you crossed the finish line. Hearing your name called out as you finish is kind-of cool.

Not too much, train more and push harder.

Walked around. Ate some oranges, watermellon, fig bars and water. Met up with BT'rs; Freeswimmingfish, Cgomez, and Tag, and chatted a few minutes. That was cool.


Swim ability and overall experience. This being my third triathon, I'm still a beginner and still getting confidence during the actual race.


This director has a reputation for putting on a good race. I volunteered at the Ironstar HIM run by them last year and everything is always first class. I'll be back here next year.