My first Sprint tri!!!

Chaserwilliams

Barefooters
Dec 15, 2010
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OK, I know I dont post here often (its quite a PITA on my phone) but I figure I could grin a bear it for special occasions...

I completed my first ever triathalon a few weekends ago. It was a local sprint tri out in the woods of a local hick town. We swam 400 meters in someones pond, then cycled 9.5 mile down a local highway, and finished with a 3.1 mile 2 lap run around the pond.

It was a pretty good course, the run was a little tough due to the ground being rock hard, uneven, and covered in stickers.

I did complete the entire event barefoot. Swam, cycled, and ran unshod. The swimming and running were no brainers for going BF, but cycling was new. I had never cycled BF before, so it was an experience. I dont have clip in pedals, just some cheap metal jobbers. So to prevent my feet being cut to shreds I covered the pedals with duct tape. This actually worked better than expected. lol.

I hadnt really trained for this event, other than the running and maybe 60 total miles on the bike this year. I hadnt swam in over a year, so I was slightly under prepared for the race itself...

The swim took me roughly 13 minutes, the leader out of the water took a little over 6 minutes to out that into perspective. Luckily coming out of the water I did have an advantage in the transition to the bike. Just trew on a helmet and took off, effectively taking out 3-4 competitors. On the bike I caught 2 more people and finished the bike ride in 33ish minutes, and went into another quick and easy transition, just took the helmet back off.

The run was defimately my strong point as I caught something like 10 people. I ran the 5k in 22:30 or somewhere around there. Could have gone faster, but there was a quarter mile long section that was covered in stickers. To make it worse, you covered this stretch twice during the run, so that slowed me down a little, but not much.

My goal going into the tri was to finish under 75 minutes. I finished in 69:33, and 4th in my age group. My buddy won, for the second year in a row. He came off the bike in second, with a 3 minute gap between him and first, and ended up winning by almost a full minute. Hes a beast though, and hes also doing his first full Ironman next weekend (Go Mark!!) so a sprint tri is no biggie to him, lol.

The BF cycling wasnt bad at all. I felt like I could use my toes to "grip" the pedals and help to pull the pedals back at the bottom of the cycle, and then release weight from then on the upwards portion. Ill definately continue to cycle BF in the future as it did feel good.
 
Very nice, Chaser.  Congrats!

Very nice, Chaser. Congrats!
 
 Congrats Chaser Great

Congrats Chaser



Great report and thanks for the tip on duck taping peddles, I will defiantly give it a try

BF on the Bike! way to go. I like your discription

"I felt like I could use my toes to "grip" the pedals and help to pull the pedals back at the bottom of the cycle, and then release weight from then on the upwards portion."

I get the same feeling. Sometimes it feels like my feet are glued to the peddle. It is amazing how tight you can grip with your foot at high cadence.
 
Way to be! Not having to

Way to be! Not having to worry about shoes sure does speed up those transitions. I tri the opposite of you. I come out of the water really fast and then watch all you people run by me later.