The Oasis USA triathlon that I mentioned earlier was yesterday morning. I’ve been a bit preoccupied to blog about it, sorry.
It was an early start (7am), although they split up the group into two “heats” for the beginning swimming part due to limited space. The three of us (Dan, Sara, and I) went in the second group, which was apparently the younger half of the crowd, but we still did pretty well because it seemed like a lot of the others weren’t super strong swimmers.
The biking wasn’t too bad, and the running part sucked about as much as I expected it to. All in all, I’d say that it wasn’t quite as brutal as I was thinking it would be.
Looking back there were several points I regretted pacing myself a little too conservatively. Specifically in the swimming part, I took it a bit easy in anticipation of the biking and running being so hard, but then it turned out that I probably could have gone pretty much all out in the swimming part (at least upper body), since the rest was all legs.
On the biking part I took a wrong turn on the first lap around the Rose Bowl, so I had to turn around and backtrack out to the outer circle, but other than that it went pretty smoothly. The running went well too, except for my calves starting to cramp at the very beginning and having to stop to stretch them out a bit.
After crossing the finish line, I still felt pretty good, which was my first indication that I should have pushed harder throughout the whole thing, but oh well; it was my first time and it was a good learning experience. Next time I will be more ready and in better shape, but it was a good start, and helped me realize (again) the value of having a goal to shoot for as you exercise and try to get in shape.
PS - There’s still time to sponsor me if you’d like, since I need to mail in the sponsorship form and money still.
3 Comments
That paint on the ground makes that pic look so funny.
More photos here.
and here.