So just finished my first sprint triathlon yesterday and am pretty pleased on how it all turned out. Swim was .3, bike was 10 miles and run was a 5k. I ended up finishing 15th overall and 3rd in the Newbie category (checked my age group also and would have been 3rd in that if I had not decided to be a newbie, oh well). I knew physically that I could finish a sprint triathlon so I wanted to push myself for this one and see what I could do.

Results:

Place  Tottime  Div/Tot     Div         Rank   Swim   Tran1 Rank      Bike    Tran2  Rank Run 
15        1:07:23    3/37    NEWB-M   90       12:58   1:17      24     31:54     1:28      6     19:47 

Went out on the swim and took a left at the first buoey, start wasn't to crazy. I got to the right and let all the strong swimmers go. After I took a left past it, I went straight for the next one and was going good. Then took a left back to shore at the last one. Here is where I got kicked in the head and had to swim around someone in the wave in front of me. It slowed me down for a second, but once I got passed her I was ok. There was 1 guy and 3 girls trying to go around it and it slowed me down, but not to bad. Got going again and could see the shore (what a great sight). Got to the beach and decided to take off the wetsuit at transition area near my bike, knowing that I would be to dizzy trying to unzip it still in the water. I think I reached back for it once and couldn't grab the string, so said screw it and ran to transition. Once I got to transition, there was 2 other people near me who beat me out of the water, but I beat them out of transition. I took off the wetsuit, very quickly and put on my biking shoes and helmet and then I left. Swim time was 12:58 and I finished 90th (need to work on that).

Transition 1 - 1:17

So the bike went about as well as I could have hoped for. Well actually wanted to get under 30 minutes, but went a little over at 31:54. I was passed only once, by this one person that turned out to finish second in the newbie age group and he had a nice tri bike. Other than him, I passed a lot of people that had started in the swimming wave before me. There was a huge hill at mile 4 for about 3/4 a mile, but other than that there was mostly rolling hills. Only hiccup was the garmin I had mounted on the bike was going to be transferred to my wrist after the bike ride. I could not get the wrist strap on my wrist while I was riding so I decided to put it on my wrist during the transition. Once I got to mile 9.75, I started taking me feet out of the shoes that were attached to the clips. This was ok, got my feet on top of my shoes and rode in from there. Hooked one leg around and had a perfect stop from the bike and kept running towards the transition area. Only problem was, one of my bike shoes started scrapping on the ground and eventually fell off. I wasn't sure what to do, so I went back for it, which was probably about 10 yards and then someone threw it to me. I then went to put my bike onto the rack, which was tougher to find. Finally found it, slipped on my running shoes and grabbed my number belt and took off. Other hiccup was me trying to take the front of the garmin from the bike mount onto my wrist. Thought I had clicked it on my wrist mount and it fell off as I was about to leave the transition area. Picked it up and off I went. Happy with both the transition and bike ride seeing how this was my first tri and finished the bike in 24th place. Now I want a tri bike, but will probably wait until at least next Summer or the following year. 

Transition 2 - 1:28

Now for my favorite part of the triathlon. Finished this in 6th overall and had one person in front of me to catch, but I couldn't. He started the run about 3 minutes ahead of me, but could not catch him. Run splits were what I expected them to be, 6:32, 6:32, and 6:18. I think I did enough brick runs to make this run go ok. Did not feel like I really opened up at all, so maybe next time I will push harder. Going in to the run wanting to break 20 minutes and just came in at 19:45.

What a great experience, I was contemplating doing another one this weekend, but woke up this morning with a head cold. So we will see how I feel the rest of the week and go from there. I would like to first qualify for Boston this Fall and then go back to more triathlons so we will see how that goes. Maybe an Ironman in a few years......

Congrats......and very nice times !

 

Like Proto said....nothing Newbie about your times. Awesome run split ! I peeked at your log.....I think I have once before. Very impressive and it showed for this race.

 

Betcha can't wait for the next one!

Thanks for the responses guys, I am already looking forward to my next one. Maybe this weekend, but we will see how I feel by Thursday, still got this head cold thingy. Probably from the brown water that I swam in on Sunday.