Fast improvements. 3rd race WAY better than 1st.

I've logged my first three tris in little over a month.  Reviewing my numbers, I feel that I have come a long way in a short time.

To anyone getting started I say use your first race as a bit of a benchmark, but don't read too much into it, you might be surprised how fast you can blow it away!

My first race was a half oly sprint (Kansas City Tri), and the 3rd yesterday was my first longer distance, not exactly an oly (Topeka Tinman).

(.45mile/12.4/3.1 and 1mile/20/6.9)

My times for race 1 and 3:

24:52/5:46/51:32 /2:04/38:53       2:03:08
36:01/2:21/1:25:49/2:04/1:47:37  3:52:52

I was pleasantly surprised by the improvement in my swim time, and I made a serious effort to  knock down T1 and it worked out great.  (Sockless for bike, shoes clipped in and less walking in/out of transition.)

The bike time doesn't look all that different, but the Tinman was significantly hillier so my bike time was even better than the clock would suggest.  I also used a Camelbak which helped immensely, with a bottle of Powerade on the downtube. I also got out of my shoes coming into transition and did a flying dismount. (Not sure if I'm calling that the right name, but I lifted my right leg over the bike onto my left side and hopped off at the dismount line.)

I JUST noticed that my T2 times for these races was identical. Interesting....I might not improve that by more than a few seconds unless I start running without socks.

I am pleased with my short term progression, and want to show anyone that hasn't raced yet (or only once so far) that just working the bugs out and gaining a little experience/confidence can translate to improvements and time gains very quickly.

This is fun!

-eric