Triangle Orthopedic Sprint Triathlon

My first triathlon of the year was on NC State's Centennial Campus - the Triangle Orthopedic Sprint. This was a short little race: 750 meter lake swim, 10.5 mile bike and a 5K run. This is typically a time trial start; one person going every 5 seconds but this year they switched it up just a bit and had mini waves of 5 people every 15 seconds. The lake was chilly! 65 degrees, which no one could ever convince me that this is 'not bad.' I forced Marty to buy me neoprene arm sleeves since I have a sleeveless wetsuit and they were awesome. They stayed up, kept my arms warm, and were easy to come off.

We knew a bunch of people at the race so that's always a lot of fun. Several from our Master's swim group including my archnemesis Erik who would be starting :15 behind me. I started with another fellow master's swimmer, John, who took off way faster than I can, but I ended up exiting the lake just a bit behind him. I passed him running up the brutal hill to transition, where I then passed Erik (yup, he passed me in the water and I had no hope of even trying to draft off of him! archnemesis no more -- he'll have to find a new superhero to fight).

Off on the bike and I passed a few girls right away. There's really no way of knowing where you are in a race like this since people are starting all over the place. The bike was hard - it was hilly right at the beginning and difficult to find any sort of rhythm. Then it was rolling but before you knew it, it was over. I never felt all that comfortable or that I was pushing super hard, but that's what you get when you aren't doing a whole bunch of intensity at the moment.

Off on the run and I felt pretty good. Again, not much intensity in my training leads to semi-slow runs like this one. The course also had a fair number of hills, which I normally wouldn't mind when I'm in good shape, but right now so early on it was hard. So I backed off a bit :)

I ended up 2nd overall and had a really fun day out there. I do love racing! Pics to come if I get any sent to me from friends on the course. I debuted our new OSB one piece kit.