I just finished my first sprint triathlon last night at Lake Louisa in Clermont and thought I would share some of my observations as a complete newbie to tris.
First off, thanks to the many STers that responded to my previous posts and helped me prepare for this event. Your sage advice was much appreciated.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, the Lake Louisa sprint tri series takes place Thursday nights in Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont, Florida.
The swim:
The swim was a 300 yard or meter swim in Lake Louisa. I went into the lake before the race started and just did a few strokes. I think that really helped me get used to being in the brown water and not being able to see the bottom of the lake or anything else. There were maybe a few dozen other men that started with me and I started to the back and off to the side of the group since I didn’t want to get swam over. The lake was pretty shallow and you could wade out a good part of the distance, but I forced myself to swim even if I could still wade since I wanted to get used to swimming in a lake. Once I started swimming I think all thoughts of technique/form went out the window and adrenaline took over. I don’t think my swimming is as bad as I thought, or at least no worse than the majority, since even though I started at the back I caught the main cluster at the halfway point. The swim duration felt really quick. It seemed to be easier and over much faster than the equivalent 12 lengths at the YMCA pool. Probably the adrenaline, since I was really huffing and puffing at the end of it.
T1:
I couldn’t find my bike! I ran over to where I thought I had racked it and spent about a minute swearing to myself “where is my bike”. Finally found it about a minute later. I also had some trouble getting my bike shoes on. The friction between my sockless feet and the tongue of my shoes was making it hard to slip my feet in. I think next time I may put some vaseline under the tongue of my shoes to help my feet slide in faster. Finally I need to find a quicker way to hop on my bike and get clipped in. I saw a guy in front of me doing a sort of run thing where is left foot was on his left pedal and he stood to the left of his bike and pushed it along with his right foot. I may try that.
The bike:
If the swim was easier than I thought it would be, then the bike was harder. I wasn’t prepared for the hills since I don’t ride in Clermont. The course itself was great fun. I had to use the entire gear range of my bike (I have a double) and even broke 30mph on a descent. I met another first timer during the bike portion and we pretty much hung together the entire bike course. I would get ahead of him up the hills and he would pass me going down and we did that the whole way.
T2:
No real problems here. Next time I may try getting out of my shoes while on the bike and leaving them clipped in.
The run:
I’ve never done any bike/run bricks so I was worried how it would feel coming off the bike. It didn’t bother me though. If anything, I think I started off running too fast and I had to slow down. I was able to pass a handful of people on the run.
The finish:
I ended up finishing in 40:14.
General observations:
This was a great course for a first timer IMHO. I like the Thursday night format and not having to get up at the crack of dawn. I think it lowers the stress level a bit. The starting wave was small enough that it wasn’t intimidating getting into the water. The fact that you could wade for a portion of the swim if you wanted to was also a big confidence booster. The bike course was excellent, no vehicular traffic and smooth wide roads with some nice turns and hills. Oh, the goody bag I got also had some really cool swag in it!
All in all this was a super first tri and I’m looking forward to the next one!