First sprint of the year - Triathlon Week

DOUBLE DOWN · 03-26-2007, 02:33 PM

Ft. Lauderdale, FL Sprint Tri

.25 swim / 11 mile bike / 3.3 run

Just finished our areas first sprint distance tri. It felt great to get back into that early morning energy you feel from the crowd of athletes at a race. The pro's are warming up on their trainers in the parking lot, the new guys are trying to figure out how the bike racks work and where the start of the swim is located, the officials are belting out instructions over the loud speakers and in the middle of it all; I'm trying to finish a bagel and some gatorade.

I haven't been racing tri's for a year yet, but I have done enough of them that I am calm in the crowd. The lake water was cold and some people were in their wet suits, (you guys up north would be laughing at anyone down here in a wet suit right?) but I decided not to wear mine.

My goal was under 1:10 for the first time. My fastest time last year was a 1:12. I finished in 1:09:20. I see right away my swim was weaker than I expected, and I need to upgrade my goggles. It was hard to sight and I was getting water in them constantly. The bike felt great (average 20.8 on a tough course with lots of turns) and my run went from my weakest event to my strongest (the marathon training pays off).

Splits were 7:40 / 2:49 / 31:20 / :49 / 26:30

Next race, Boca Raton, Fl sprint distance on April 15.

Cheers!!!

sfricks · 03-30-2007, 11:38 AM

Not sure why my reply didn't show up from the other day but it basically said YOU ROCK! Congrats!

DOUBLE DOWN · 03-30-2007, 11:56 AM

Hey Scott,

I was able to see the first reply originally. To answer your question on T1, It seems like most of the tri's around here place the swim a long distance from the bike racks. In this race, most of the time on T1 was running from the lake to the transition area.