All in all I’m extremely happy with what I achieved. The Issaquah Triathlon is a Sprint. Most sprints are a half mile swim, 12.4 mile bike ride and a 5k (3.1 miles) run. Not sure why, but this sprint was a quarter mile swim, 15 mile bike ride and even though they said it’s a 5k run, it felt less.

Goal #1: Finish the race! Success!

Goal #2: Don’t be last! Success!

Having achieved those two goals I decided to not beat myself up over my times, which weren’t great, but hey it’s my first tri and I learned a lot!

Swim

I probably learned the most from this swim. For some reason I decided to be in the inner front of my entire wave. Dumb! I was not prepared for the physical beating I took from the other swimmers. Smash, claw, smack, t-bone! What? When I hit the first buoy I couldn’t breathe and had to back stroke just to get some air. By doing this I lost a lot of time plus I was too busy trying to not die that I went waaaayyy off course adding at least 20% of the length to the swim. Ugh. I was a little delirious when I got out of the water.

Lesson #1: Let the fast people start in front.

Lesson #2: Don’t try to swim as fast as you can despite all the excitement. Do steady maintainable strokes.

 Swim Time: 13:33 (should have been closer to 9 minutes)

Bike

I found the biking portion nice and relaxing. I had a great cadence and didn’t fatigue. Despite that I couldn’t help but notice other bikers zipping by me even though their legs weren’t spinning nearly as fast as mine. What’s up with that? Well, I was borrowing my friend’s mountain bike and even though I put road bike slicks on the wheels I was at a bit of a disadvantage.

Lesson #3: Road bikes are significantly lighter than mountain bikes allowing you to move that machine easier.

Lesson #4: Road bikes have larger tires and different gear sets allowing for a single cadence to bring your much much further.

Bike Time: 57:08

Run

Transitioning from bike to run was interesting. My body still wanted to bike so my balance was a little weird and I felt nauseous for the first half mile, but I don’t think that slowed me down. I was definitely tired, but I pushed through and finished. I really loved the people with the water cups as I ran by. I felt like a real athlete!

Run Time: 25:47

Total Sprint Time (including transitions): 1:43:04

My next triathlon is next month July 18th. Seafair!

Don’t get me wrong, you’ll certainly see me updating my Facebook status about 100 times for each blog post and Twitter almost updates itself with all the cool gadgets we carry around that are aware of what we are doing (aka foursquare and RunKeeper).

The intent of this site is to be just a glimpse of my pursuits and passions that I’m open to share. Yes, there are areas of my life that I don’t shout about from the rooftops.

So what do I want to share? For now I’d like to focus on a few of the roles that I play. Roles that I love…

I’m a Father
I have two beautiful daughters that mean everything to me. Two daughters that I’d sacrifice everything for. Two daughters that have brought more joy and tears to my life than I ever knew possible.

I’m a Developer
I’ve been involved in developing software since I started college back in 1995. It’s what I do for a living and I love it.

I’m a Triathlete
Back in August of 2009 I decided reprioritize my personal health at a higher level than my career growth. I set out to be strong and athletic using a triathlon as the training vehicle to get me there. Interesting, being strong and athletic has boosted what I’m capable of doing in my career.

I’m a Photographer
Amateur for sure, but I love capturing the world through a variety of lenses and sharing what I see. I plan on travelling the world and shooting it!

We’ll see how this goes! I hope to have fun.

For those of you who followed my blog in the past and are wondering where all those posts went… they are safely archived away.

Ciao,

Sean.