This was my first triathlon. On a whim after hearing about some friends mentioning a training program I decided that for my 30th birthday I wanted to give myself the present of accomplishing what I would consider a pretty substantial goal.

Hello all, I am a Tufts University Student, and I just completed my first Triathlon. Naturally, I am not addicted to the sport and am trying to find outlets to train and improve. Are there any triathlon training groups in Boston? if I can't find a group, how do many of you train in the winter months when even the thought of going outside makes you shudder? Anyway, happy racing, Amish

This was my first race of the season, 'C' priority and supposed to be in the middle of a build cycle. I had been experiencing a frequent ache/pain in my left achilles for about two weeks prior to the race, so I didn't run or bike for 5 days before the race. Consequently, I was a little more rested before this race than I had intended but with the injury I was not expecting anything great.

This was a race weekend, with a half on Saturday (see kkocan's report) and a sprint on Sunday. Saturday was sunny and hot, Sunday was not hot and very wet; it’s hard to believe how drastically the conditions changed from one day to the next. Apparently a number of people really suffered in the heat on Saturday.

As a former cyclist and rookie triathlete, I'm very familiar with the importance of establishing a proper BASE early in the season. When I was training 10 or 15 hours a week to be a competitive collegiate cyclist, it made sense to do 4-hour base rides at a Zone 2 pace.

Ok... so it's not my race, but I did a write-up of the g/f in a sprint tri with lots of pictures. This was a short, reverse sprint-tri in Irvine... A bit home-grown, and not the greatest course; but, as you will see, she had a great time in her first Tri, and I had a great time taking pictures.