First triathlon!!!

I competed in my first triathlon yesterday, the Culpeper Sprint Triathlon in Culpeper, VA!!

There was a group of six of us from the swim team who competed.  I was the only tri-virgin of the group, and I think I did surprisingly well, all things considered!  The triathlon was a 750m swim, followed by a 16 mile ride, then a 5k run.

First up was the swim.  The water was quite warm, 86 degrees, and was murky to the point where you couldn't see past your arms.  The course was a triangle, with the start and end portion of the race at one of the points on the triangle.  There were around 75 folks in my wave (I was in the first wave, the Under 39 Men wave).  The wave kicked off with the normal piranha feeding frenzy, and I put up a pretty strong pace for the first 200 meters or so to separate myself from the pack.  After that I settled into a slightly slower pace and just cruised through the next 500 meters or so.  I'd estimate I was swimming at around a 1:20 pace.  I swam faster for the last 75 meters or so into the finish.  My swim time was 11:50, so I'm thinking the swim course was closer to 850m than 750m.  My swim time was the 7th fastest overall and 6th fastest in my wave for the men.

Once out of the water, I headed into the transition area.  For both the bike and run transition areas, I wasn't worried about speed, just about getting in and getting out with everything in order.  In order, I took off the cap and goggles as I was running in, put my helmet on once I got to the bike, then put on my socks and bike shoes and headed out with the bike.  My transition time was 1:49, which gave me the 86th fastest transition time for the men.  Now that I've gotten actual transitions under my belt, next time I'll focus on speed.  Many thanks to Simon L. for walking me through the transitions a couple weeks ago!!

Next up was the bike.  Coming out of the transition area, we immediately ran up a hill to where the bike course started.  Once we ran up the grassy slope to the road, we were off.  Due to me not having a bike at the moment, I borrowed my sister's bike.  And it's too small for me.  And the saddle lowered as the ride went on.  And its gearing felt different from the other bikes I've ridden.  Sigh.  It took me about 5 minutes to get used to the odd position on the bike, and an additional 5 minutes after that to finally adjust to the seemingly different gearing.  After the rough first 10 minutes, though, I had settled in.  By my count, I passed 3 people on the bike and had 21 pass me, which was actually way less than I thought would pass me.  There was a group of three guys ahead of me that I kept pace with--over the 16ish mile ride (the gps on my phone clocked it at ~16.7 miles), I kept the guy at the back of the group between 30-200 feet ahead of me until the last 1/4 mile or so, when they pulled ahead.  Overall, it was a great ride.  Mostly overcast, upper 70s, and pretty scenery.  Plugging the numbers in, I averaged 17.9 mph on the ride with a time of 55:55, giving me the 70th fastest bike time for the men.

Coming off the bike, we had to run down the hill with our bikes back towards the transition area.  On my third step on the grass going downhill, my left ankle twisted and immediately started hurting.  I limped my way into the transition area and stretched it out in there.  Also had some leg cramps, so stretched them out, too.  Pretty slow transition, as I took off the helmet, put the race belt on, then swapped my bike shoes for running shoes, and stretched out.  I had a 2:04 for the transition, which was the 180th fastest for the men.

The last portion of the race was the run.  My right calf and quad were cramping for the first mile or so, and my left ankle was pretty much on fire.  I basically hobbled the entire "run."  For the 5k, my time was 31:18, which comes out to a 10:04 pace per mile.  Not exactly setting any speed records.  On good running days, I've been able to hit sub-8:00 per mile paces for 5-10 mile runs, so I know I could've knocked off 6-7 minutes off that run sans ankle issues.  Oh well.  My run time was "fast" enough to put me 154th in the men's rankings.

Final time was 1:42.54, which put me 6th in my age group and 76th overall for the men.  Given the issues I had with the bike and the abysmal run, I'm extremely happy with that time!  I had a total blast, and really look forward to my next tri, which looks to be in October, unless there's another sprint between now and then!