First Sprint Triathlon of The Season : Ormond Y Tri

Sunday was my first sprint triathlon of this season. I was very anxious to race because after spending so much of the winter training for my run, I had issues come up before each one of my early season olympic races.

The Friday before Daytona Frogman, I came down with the stomach flu and was down like 8 pounds by the time Sunday came around. I had bad plantar fasciitis issues for 6 weeks before St. Anthony's and had to walk half of the run for that.

I have got back to light running with the help of my Vibram shoes and "The Stick". I felt good going in to the race this weekend.

The swim was a 1/4 mile ocean swim and there was a little surf that made the swim interesting for some of the participants. I am comfortable with swimming in the surf as I have grown up surfing and I'm used to the ocean. I came out in 8:22 (some said the course was a bit long but who cares). I felt good running up the approach to the transition area.

I hopped on the bike and took off. I was in approximately 20th position after the swim. I made a few good passes and kept the head down and gave it all I had for the short 10 mile course. I put in 22.8 mph avg. in 26:20. I came off the bike in 12th position. After a quick transition, I was off on the 3 mile run.

I started off by holding back a little to make sure the foot was going to hold up and slowly increased my pace. I had some really good runners pass me by and held on with what I had. I had a good sprint to the finish and held off a couple runners. I ended up finishing the run in 22:51. In hind sight I probably could have went a bit harder in the beginning, but since I was not sure about my foot, I felt it was smarter to test it out first.

I am in the 35-39 age group and it was tough. I ended up 6th in my age group and 20th overall with a time of 59:35. I was happy with the overall results and it was the first time I have broken the 1 hour mark in a tri. The next one is in 3 weeks and I will be looking to push a little harder and knock off a couple guys that have beaten me over the last couple years.