Sprint distance (750/20K/5K).
Ouch.
Burn, baby, burn.
LOL…yup…they hurt.
Yours is the first RR that I’ve ever seen that is actually too short. How did you do? Good, Bad or Ugly will do : )
One-word RR, hard to beat.
I thought after seeing all those RR’s that require a table of contents, or at least an executive summary, a little brevity might be nice. This was the Investors Group Sprint in Dartmouth, NS.
Swim - went OK. It was a rectangular swim in Lake Banook, which is also used as a rowing / paddling basin. the lake itself is marked in lanes with small buoys every 25m, making navigation a breeze. The small buoys do hurt a little if you swim directly into one, I found that out when I hopped in the water during the gear pickup and prerace breifing (the day before the race). The water was on the border of being wetsuit legal or not (wetsuits ended up being legal) but I opted to forego the sausage casing. I’d guesstimate that 95% or so of the starters wore a wetsuit. I took it out a little too fast over the first 200 or so, I was sucking wind until the 2nd turnaround, at which point I managed to get into a nice rhythm. The lake had zero visibility, and whomever’s legs I kept hitting, sorry. in a murky lake it is impossible to see a black wetsuit.
Out of the water in 13:xx, good for 31st overall out of 240 or so starters, about 2 mins behind the leaders. Tigerchik will be disappointed in my swim, sorry 
I really haven’t been doing any swimming in the last few months, so it wasn’t bad, considering. I’d better get my ass back in the pool.
Bike. This bit felt good, except I’m still carrying 10-15 lbs too much (that will be really evident on the run) so although I was motoring on the flats and false flats, I was really hurting on the steep climbs. There were a few of those. All of my rides have been pretty steady effort, so no real punch to get over those nasty bits. It was the first time really pushing on the TT bike, and I am positioned quite aggressively. The position felt great though, the only time it was necessary to break the aero position was for a couple of out of the saddle climbs, and a few corners. finished up 30 something position on the bike, lost another 6 mins to the leaders there. 40 minuts and change, including the run from the swim exit into T1
Run. Ouch. The first 2 K I felt like I was going to die. Both calves decided to go into full lockout mode about 500 metres into the run. I shuffled along as best I could. could and eventually they loosened up a little, but my 5K ended up being absolutely brutal. 25: something including T2. Overall was 1:19:50 or thereabouts. That’s about 7 minutes slower than my last sprint back in 2004, and 12 mins slower than my last real competitive season in 2003. The winner did around 1:04, so it was a tough course.
Overall, finished 39th. 4th in my AG out of 23 (I think). They were giving away mugs down to 3rd place in the AG. 4th place REALLY sucks.
Overall, It was tough, but I haven’t done any speedwork whatsoever, and I typically need that speedwork. I think my prep is still going OK for the Newfoundland 70.3, aside from a few missed weeks of training due to illness.
The organisation was great. The course was open to traffic, but it was well policed at all of the intersections, and they did a great job.
I wasn’t very good at 500 word book reports, either.