ICE Breaker Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I felt good warming up before my wave. I was enjoying the buoyancy of the wetsuit. I swam a little, nice and easy. Mostly I was just floating getting acclimated to the cold water.
When my wave started, I waited to be in the back of the pack expecting to be one of the slower swimmers. I was trying to take it easy, but I still had to maneuver around a few swimmers. I got about 3/4 of the way to the first buoy when IT happened--the claustrophobic freak out.
The wetsuit made me feel like I couldn't get full breaths, and it made me claustrophobic. I ended up freaking out and having to catch a kayak three times. In between kayaks, I would freestyle until I couldn't catch my breath, then I'd breast stroke, back stroke, and side stroke until I had to catch another kayak. It was frustrating. I knew it was all mental. I would tell the nice volunteers in the kayaks that it was all mental, and that I was just a headcase. They were very nice and supportive. At one point, I'm floating there, treading water, trying to catch my breath, thinking "this SUCKS! I could always just be a runner." I almost called the boat over for a ride to shore, but I knew that I'd be even angrier with myself after. So I trudged on.. slowly, but I trudged on.
The last stretch to shore took FOREVER. The waves were against us. Every time I opened my mouth to breath I sucked in water. And it seemed that the shore didn't get any closer no matter how much I swam.
There was one other blue cap in the water with me on the final stretch. We had been passed by... well.. just about everyone. While we bobbed there in the water, I told him that I thought we were that last two from our wave. He pointed out to me that we were still a part of a small fraction of the population who ever even attempt a triathlon. That made me feel better. I didn't get his name, but what he said helped me right at the end when I needed it.
When I finally got to where I could stand up, I immediately started ripping the wetsuit off. I just had to get my upper body free. When I hit the shore, I pulled my garmin out of my swim cap to see what the damage was, but I found that I hadn't successfully turned it on when the swim started. So I started it there. There was a long stretch from the water up the beach to the transition area. My legs were hurting, and I couldn't run, so I walked all the way to my bike rack.

Practice swimming in a wetsuit BEFORE trying it in a race!

All splits after the swim are from my Garmin since the official splits aren't posted yet.

I didn't try to hurry in transition. I'm not sure where the swim time ended and T1 time started, but I'm using from where I exited the water as the start of transition. This includes a long walk from the water's edge to my bike rack. Once at the bike rack, I peeled the rest of the wetsuit off, cleaned the sand off my feet, got my shoes and helmet and sunglasses on, then had a gel. My legs were shot. I was not looking forward to the bike, but I was happy to be out of the wetsuit.

I don't know. My legs needed the rest, and so did my psyche.

I started the bike with spent legs, and was hoping for a nice easy, flat ride to let my legs recover from the swim. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. The course was hilly. I had to hit the granny gear more than a couple of times to make it up hills in the saddle. My HR didn't get crazy like I anticipated after the crappy swim. I got into Z3 on the hills, but overall my AHR was Z2.
If the hills weren't bad enough, the wind was strong on the bike course. I got blown sideways a couple of times, and thought I was going to crash. But I was still glad to be out of the water.
At some point my right foot had gone numb. I'm not sure why. That's not a problem I usually have. I noticed it about 4 miles into the ride. It didn't really affect my performance, so I just kept going.
I started feeling the need to pee near the end of the bike, but I wasn't going to go on myself. It seemed a silly thing to do in a sprint where I was BOP, so I held it.
I didn't think I was doing very well during the ride. Looking back, and at the Garmin data, I'm actually pretty happy with the effort considering how spent my legs were and how hilly the course was. I anticipated averaging 15mph on a flat course with mostly fresh legs, so averaging 15mph on a hilly course with spent legs seems OK to me.

More hill training.

Again, I wasn't trying to hurry in transition. I didn't hang out, but I wasn't overly trying to hurry.

I had to pee really bad when I got off the bike, so I headed straight for the bathroom. I lost at least 1 minute peeing, but it was SO worth it. My brother was there at the beginning of the run and was laughing at me while I tried to find an open bathroom.
I came out of the bathroom, and started running. My legs felt heavy. I checked my HR and saw that it was low Z1 and was surprised. As it turned out my HR stayed low the entire run. I felt like I should have been able to increase my effort, but my legs didn't really want to.
Miles 2 and 3 were very hilly. I walked the steeper hills, and carefully ran down them. My calves were burning by the end of the 3rd mile, I passed a guy who had been reduced to walking all of it because the hills burned up his calves. He told me so as we walked a hill together. At the top we wished each other luck, and I ran on.
The trail flattened out the last mile, and I was surprised when I looked down at my Garmin and saw my pace was 9:30/mile. It made me happy. I felt like I was running in place, but a 9:30 pace was great for me at that moment. My HR finally crept up to the top of Z2 right at the end of the run.
I crossed the finish line at about 2:38:00. I thought "geez, how long DID that swim take me, anyway?" My brother reminded me later, that I was in wave 3, so I needed to subtract 14 minutes from my time. That made it a little better, but still was a LONG swim.
But, I had finished my first triathlon. And given there was a moment (or three) during the swim where I considered quiting, I was pretty damn happy to have finished.

At the risk of repeating myself: Practice swimming in a wetsuit BEFORE trying it in a race! Train with more hills.

Walked around drinking water.


Swimming in a wetsuit for the first time. I burned out my legs on the swim, limiting my ability to do better on the bike and run.


Not sure it's fair of me to rate the race, since it's my first. I was pretty happy with everything on race day. They seem to be taking a long time to get the race results up though. The overall results were finally posted late today (one day later), but the division breakdowns aren't up yet. I'm curious what they show as my official splits.