This is the first time I did this race but I was told before that it's a well-organized one. I arrived at the park at around 6:00 AM and there already was a good crowd of people and there was plenty of volunteers guiding cars to appropriate parking locations.

I picked up my packet on Saturday (the day prior) at Downtown Bicycles in Ft. Lauderdale so the morning went without any issues. In fact even if I didn't have my packet in hand it wouldn't have been difficult - the event is very well staffed. I didn't expect it to be too crowded since it's a bit early in the season plus it was quite chilly. The turn out was very decent though, the transition area was full if not packed.

I was surprised to see so many high-end TT bikes for a sprint triathlon. I honestly see very little reason to bring out a TT bike to a sprint event so I brought my road bike, but to each his own right?

I sat up my transition area which wasn't very cramped. I managed to score a spot on the rack very close to the exit and right by a garbage can so I gained an unfair amount of free space. My bike was racked, bike and run gear spread out on a towel... couldn't wish for a more spacious setup. Picking up the chip and getting marked took maybe 10 minutes in total. It was a pleasure seeing people from my training meetup as volunteers.

Now onto the ugly part. I was told the water would be 70F. Alas, it was was 63F. Honestly that was a bit cold. Since I didn't bring the wetsuit I opted to skip the warmup swim which might have affected my overall swim time. By the time I got out of the water I didn't feel my fingers and toes and had mad issues at T1 - my fingers simply weren't moving, I couldn't put the helmet or glasses on - snapping the little buckle on the helmet must have taken 30 seconds, it's a very tricky thing to do when you have no feeling left in your fingertips. I usually opt to ride with gloves (been in too many crashes) but I had to skip that too.

Coming out of T1 I felt okay but a couple minutes later, once my blood pressure went up, I experienced something I never experienced before. My calves were late at "firing." It felt almost as a cramp but not quite. Essentially when my foot was in the 3 o'clock position in the pedal stroke, my calf was still relaxed and then would flex half a second later. My guess is that the muscle fibers were still frozen and there was some delayed reaction going on. It was a very interesting a couple of minutes...

The biking portion is an easy one for me, the run isn't. So I was sparing myself for the run. One thing I noticed though is even what seem like experienced triathletes absolutely suck at cycling. I saw people in the tallest gear barely cranking it, exhausting their slow-twitch fibers while crawling at ridiculous paces. So once I got into my comfortable 85-95 cadence I felt like a locomotive. I felt almost guilty blowing past people on TT bikes. Another thing to mention is the bike course was very twisty, it was almost exactly the course that was used for a criterium event some time ago. I even ended up scraping a pedal on a couple of turns. I had an awesome little chase going on with another cyclist who I've seen on the roads before. I believe he placed 2nd in his age group later. I didn't see anyone on a TT bike corner while pedaling.

The run turned out to be equally interesting. Once the path zigzagged through a couple of parking lots it went by the lake and later would lead into the woods. As I was still picking up pace I got the dreaded side pain. This almost never happens so I am not prepared to deal with it. I tried slowing down hoping it'd go away and it didn't. I pulled off to a side to do some situps as they usually help. As I was doing the situps (for what felt like forever) I got passed by a very old looking guy who was "in the zone." Then the fellow cyclist caught up to me and shouted "dude you're getting beat by a 75 y.o. man, get up!" That was motivation enough, even though my side still hurt like hell I started running. I really need to catch the old guy. Within 500 yards the pain subsided and I started settling into my pace again. At this point the trail leads into the woods and has lots of turns so you don't see people ahead of you which makes it difficult to judge your speed. I usually train in the 7:30 pace but during that split I had to push it a bit harder to make up for the lost time. It's too bad the run was so short, it was over before I could really get going. I did catch the old guy though. I spoke to him later after the race and he's in fact 75 y.o. and consitently runs sub-7-minute miles.

Overall I am glad I did this race. It was just a great way to spend a morning.

The results are here. I finished 32 overall, 7th in my age group.