The beast of the East Sprint Triathlon

After the Duathlon last October, Ive been itching to get into some low end triathlon stuff. Training for something like that keeps me moving by keeping a goal in front of me. Since the beginning of this year Ive been running, taking spin and swimming

Training

Since completing the duathlon, Im confident in my bike and run and just focused on swimming. I signed up for swim atlanta so that I can brush up on my swim. 

Game day

After many months of training, May 21st is finally here... On the way to the race, as always, a gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge mountains. One of the reasons I love to do the race in Hiawassee. I have some beautiful footage below. When i showed up to the race, it was obvious I was surrounded by professionals. Most people do this as a way to kick off their season, not "see if I can do it"

The swim portion was a little harder then I thought, the lake was cold and jumping in at 8 in the morning was difficult. When I first tried swimming in cold water, my body's natural reflex was not to inhale or exhale when my face was in the water. It was very difficult to get a smooth stroke when I didn't exhale until my face was out of the water. The trick was that I had to force myself to exhale when my face was still in the water. This made the swim much more difficult and Im embarrassed to say that 2/3 of the swim I just kept wanting to swim to shore and quit, on the last third of the swim, not sure if I got used to it, or the finish line was closest point to the shore at that point.

I did the bike fine, but was already falling behind in the race. I didnt realize, how much I underestimated my journey until the run. I mildly jogged to finish dead last. 

Overall Im not that proud of my performance, I feel like i could have done better if I trained harder. Not to overstate the obvious. Coming in, in last place did bruise my ego a bit :) I might have to come back next year to improve on that whole dead last thing.

After my race, I stopped by brass town bald, and climbed the peak to take some pictures. Nice place w/ pretty views.

The race consists of Swim 4/10, Bike 16 Miles, Run 4 Miles

http://thebeastoftheeast.net/race-schedules/sprint-distance-triathlon/