3rd time's a charm - Lonestar Sprint Triathlon

3rd Triathlon I've paid to enter - 1st I've made it to the startline - and finish too:

First ever triathlon - needs work!

15 wave start jumping off a dock then waiting for the signal to "GO" for each wave about 4 minutes apart - waves were by age groups and I was in the 4th wave (M40-49).

Swim - 149th place/556 - 11:29 - pretty slow - lots of bumping - a bit of claustrophobia with low underwater visibility - very different from the pool - flipped on my back for a few strokes a couple times to get extra breating - from about 100m on really just wanting it to be over - found it difficult to get a rhythm but finally did about 3-400m in.

T1 - Improve 9 places to 140th - 3:01 - not optimized and a bit clumbsy - I'm surprized I passed people on this.

Bike - Improve to 86th place - 19.6 mph/12.5 miles (~10 mph winds not quite crosswind) - Somehow I passed 62 people and 6 passed me - but in my division I passed ONE and 3 passed me so I actually lost a couple places in the division. Overall I think I need to learn how to push the bike more - too easy to kinda put in some effort but then get distracted and kinda coast. I haven't seen if I picked up any 2min penalties - I know I earned at least one but I don't know if I got caught - I passed someone in a "no pass" zone as he was going very slow and I lost patience.

T2 - Improved to 84th place - 1:16 - I think I did this one pretty well - I had my feet out of my bike shoes before I stopped and left them clipped on the peddles- ran in my socks to my rack and slipped my running shoes on - pretty clean.

Run - Improved to 44th place - 17:59/5k - Fastest master and actually the 4th fastest in this leg overall. Great run - great fun passing people - moved up 6 spots in my age group.

The humbling moment -- missed one guy at the end with a 41 on his calf - tried to run him down but started just a little too late. I'm wondering if just maybe I got 2nd - I'd looked up the prior years results and figured my time wasn't too far from the top. Last year Philip Vinal won with 56:24 for bike/run - swim was cancelled due to wind - I got 57:31 for the same which would have been 3rd last year - surely a minute or two on the swim didn't drop me down that much.....I get my results card --- 13th - I'm not used to scoring that far down the charts in a race - there are some fast Tri-dudes.

Overall 1:12 flat - 13th/55 in my division, 44th/556 overall.

Things to work on:
- getting comfortable swimming in open water without visibility.
- pushing harder/staying focussed on the bike.
- T1 could get better - need a Tri-Suit and a bib-belt

In summary - I suck at swimming, I hold my own at bike, and I kick butt at the run. Ironman Texas coming up May 21st. Kinda dreading the swim a little but looking forward to 26.2 miles of roadkills.