Ben's 1st ever triathlon!

Here's a quick recap of my race in Devon though:

First off, I kicked ass. All this training has really helped me
improve. Final time was 1:17:28 (I figured I'd finish at about 1:20,
so I did better than I had estimated). I came 6th overall, 1st place
time was 1:13.

Swim:
Pool swim, three people per lane. My swim time was 15:24 with a pace
of 2:04/100m. I was first out of my lane. Stroke felt good, I was
really focused on not letting myself "go" too early and wanted to swim
a neg split. As it turned out I think I kept the same pace the whole
way through. Of the two other people in my lane, one was a woman who
exited the pool about 3s behind me, and the other was a man who I
lapped about 3 times. About 400m in I lost track of my lengths
though, and I think I may've swum and extra 50m...In talking to my
other lanemate afterwards, she thinks the same thing. If that's the
case then it would've dropped my final time by ~1min.

1st Trans:
Went really smooth. After my experience with trying to put my feet
into my shoes while riding and falling off 2 weeks ago, I decided to
simply slip my bike shoes on first and run with my bike to the mount
line. Only place I could've lost time was in fiddling with my bike
jersey, had a bit of an issue sliding it on, which probably only cost
me 5 seconds.

Bike:
Stayed in the drops the whole ride. Cadence avg was 87rpm. It was a
simple out and back loop, really flat, no hills. On the way back
though there was a wicked headwind.

2nd Trans:
Managed to slide my feet out of my shoes while still on my bike, so I
hit the dismount line barefoot and running. Threw my bike over my
shoulder and ran to the rack. Unfortunately I ran to the wrong rack,
and realized my stuff was two racks over. Cost me maybe 10s. Slipped
my shoes on fast though, I'd put elastic laces in my runners the day
before, so total transition time was maybe 30s.

Run:
Legs felt weird. Took me awhile to find my stride. I'd tried
increasing my cadence at the end of the bike to get some blood
flushing through my legs to prepare me for the run, but it still felt
really weird. They had the kms marked out on the bike route with
little signs, so by about 3km I started to hit my stride. I was
really cautious about not starting out too fast, although in
retrospect I realize I probably could've upped my pace sooner. Once I
hit 4km I was really moving, and I ended up sprinting the last 200m to
the finish.

Overall:
I'm pleased with how my race went, I had a really good time. The
whole time I was biking and running I had a big smile on my face. The
entire race nobody passed me, which is kind of a good feeling. And
right up until the end of the day (when the faster heats started
going) I was in first position on the leader board. Still, I'm
pleased with a 6th place finish for my first tri (pun intended).
Can't wait until Lake Chapperal though, as I have a feeling it'll be
more competitive, as the tri community in Calgary is a lot larger than
the one in Edmonton. Should be a good race!

Cheers!
Ben