Due to the heat of summer, I decided to only do a few sprints this season after the half in May. The second one of these was the Buttar Fall Triathlon Festival on Sat. 10/6/07. I did this race last July and it was a great course and put together really well. This race is a 0.75K swim, 20K bike, and 2.75 mi. run.

The weather when I left my house was rain with thunder and lightning but it cleared up by daybreak. I went for a short run after racking my bike and did a swim warmup in the dark. The bugs were thick so I stayed in the water for as long as I could.

The swim went by quickly and I felt good throughout and tried to pull hard the last 50-75 yards. The run to the transition is long and a mix of sand, rocks, twigs, and other assorted foot hazards. I kept up an OK pace and hopped on my bike.

The bike was great since the course is flat, nicely-paved, and has only a few wide turns. I felt good on the bike and tried to keep my form in check to get some more power and speed.

I tried to do like last July and go off fast on the run and try to hold my pace for 2.75 miles. I did pretty well but slowed down a bit on the last 3/4 of a mile. As part of my workout plan, I had to run for 30 mins. after the race. I felt better than I thought I would on that part but I forgot to put my socks back on for it so had to stop about 20 minutes into it due to blisters on my arches. Live and learn...

Overall, I had a good race and came in almost four minutes faster than last year--almost all on the swim portion.

My stats:
Overall time: 1:11:51
AG Place: 3 of 9

Swim: 11:30
Swim AG Place: 3rd

T1a (beach to transition area): 1:59
T1a AG Place: 3rd

T1b: 1:12
T1b AG Place: 3rd

Bike: 35:33
Bike Pace: 20.98 MPH
Bike AG Place: 5th

T2: 0:52
T2 AG Place: 6th

Run: 20:36
Run Pace: 7:29 min/mile
Run AG Place: 3rd