Well first triathlon of the season is in the books.  I think this is the first race where I’ve been quite disappointed.  Looking back at the numbers, it really wasn’t bad – in fact it was probably my best sprint time-wise to date.  After some reflection, I identified several things I did wrong; some were and some were not within my control.

1) It’s probably not the greatest idea to have a race at the end of finals week.  I was studying for two finals and working full time all week.  The race was Saturday morning, I had a final at 6 Friday night, and it was a three-hour drive to the race venue.

2) Probably not the best idea to get five hours of sleep the night before…especially having had seven or less all week.

3) I failed to plan ahead for breakfast; I got a couple snacks at the front desk before I checked out of the hotel.

4) I warmed up some, but by the time we stood around for the intro stuff, boarded the riverboat and rode to the swim start (boat was cool :)), I was most definitely not warmed up!

5) I wanted to test out my bike fitness, so I went pretty much balls to the wall for the entire 12 miles.  That led to a pretty substandard run and several walk breaks.

So lots of things to take into account for the next time; the good news is that my swim and bike have definitely improved so hard work is paying off.  Still need to get the run figured out, but there’s time.