Treasure Island Sprint Triathlon

On Sunday we participated in the first triathlon of our program. TNT set up what was advertised as a Sprint Triathlon on Treasure Island (no there isn't any) for the South and North Bay Ironteams. It was a beautiful cold (for SF) winter day. The event was supposed to be a 600m swim, 12 mile ride and 3 mile run. In reality it turned out to be a 1000m swim with a 1/2 run to the transition area and then a 12 mile ride and 3 mile run. Our coach thought that it was better we didn't know how long the swim was as it might freak some of us out! Anyhow, I was pleased with my performance. The water was rather cold but you get numb to it after a couple of minutes. The start was a bit scary in that you are surrounded by the hectic random movement of other swimmers limbs. I took a few hits but overall, I survived unscathed. The swim did feel long at the time but I managed to swim both laps of the course without stopping once! Getting out of the water was fun as I was mildly dizzy. It didn't help that we had to climb a large ladder to get off the beach and run 1/2 mile to the transition area in our wet suits (see top picture).
The transition went well and I was off on my bike pretty quickly. Raj estimated that I was about 30th (of about 80) at this stage. The cycle route was flat but had lots of turns which made for a lot of slowing down and speeding up. The ride was uneventful. I managed to pull back quite a few cyclists and was only overtaken once on the three laps of the course. I completed the ride in 38 minute with an average speed of 19 mph.
The transistion to the run was quick and I was off running the two laps of the course. The one big problem that I had with the whole event was that my feet were still rather numb while I was running. This is a strange feeling! It also makes it hard to get into a fluid running style. Despite a reasonable run, I did not feel like I was in my groove until towards the end of the run. Anyhow, I finished comfortably in 9th place! I must admit to be a little proud of myself in that I would have been happy coming in somewhere in the top half of the field.
The training program is clearly effective as I felt fine at the end, and had no aches or pains the following day. However, I did have a nap on Sunday afternoon, although I suspect that this was because we had to get up so early.

A big thanks to Raj and Graeme for coming out to support me and helping with the event.