2012 TTP Indian Springs Sprint Tri

I could call this my "What I learned when I got schooled today" blog because that's what I feels like after coming in 4th when I know I had a 3rd place in me.  To those that beat me to the finish line - Congratulations!  You won fair and square.  You either swam more efficiently, rode faster, or ran harder.  Maybe, you're not a sissy and didn't have to take a few seconds to put on socks.  That's gonna be a hard one for me to reconcile.  Lord knows I don't like blisters.

So, where do I think I can improve?  I've got to eliminate the distraction on the bike.  How am I going to do that?  I had a problem putting my water bottle back in the cage behind my seat.  I guess I've gotten used to my road bike and just haven't been on my tri-bike enough.  To resolve this problem I'll give my Bontrager Aero Pack tri-bar mounted water bottle another try.  Second, it's NO more energy gels during the bike.  I had forgotten what a sticky mess they are.  So, in the future, it's Sports Beans or ShotBlox for me.  Finally, I'm seriously re-thinking racing with my Garmin 910xt, especially since I was unable to collect any usable data from today's race.  It was all my fault and fiddling with the watch as I rode was a big distraction.  Would changing any or all of these three things have improved my bike to the point where I could have cut 1-minute plus off of the bike segment of the race?  Probably not!  Those kind of numbers will probably have to come from improving my barely adequate swim.

Anyway, it was a good race.  The weather was perfect.  The water was not cool enough to make the swim segment wetsuit legal.  The bike course was mostly long rolling hills.  It was the run course that seemed to do people in.  The course wound through the park and campground going up and down hills as we ran.

I've attached a link to a photo album which includes a few pictures taken by my wife Susan.

Thanks for reading.

2012 Indian Springs Tri