Aggieland Triathlon

Ran my first triathlon on Sunday. The TRI Aggieland Sprint Triathlon. It was a 400 meter swim, followed by a 12 mile bike and a 5K run. The event started and finished at the Rec Center on the A&M campus. I had done only one multi-sport event before. That was a run-bike-run duathlon.

My biggest worry was the swim. Until I started training for this in May, I had not swum that distance in about 30 years.

Most of the competitors were young and very athletic looking. I was the only rookie in my age group 65-69. There were four of us total in that group and two in the next group. All of them were experienced tri-athletes.

Overall, I did okay. I finished 371 out of 387 with a time of 1:54:02. All the guys older than me finished ahead of me. I was 233 out of 243 males.

The swim was the hardest leg. It was a snake swim, which meant we entered the pool one at a time and swam up one lane and down the next for eight lanes. I was one of the last to enter. There were about six behind me. After two lanes I was out of breath. I switched to alternating breast stroke, back stroke and freestyle and was able to finish in 18:12 in 382nd place.

After the swim, the bike was a treat. the only problem with the bike was that, because I was one of the last to leave the pool, there were not many bikes on the course for me to match my pace with. Still, I finished the 12 miles in 45.22 at an average pace of 15.9 m/hr. I was 303rd in the bike.


It was hard to run after the bike. I didn't find my pace until about the second mile when there was only one more mile to go. I did the run in 43:43 at a pace of 14:05 min/mi. I was 359th in the run.

If there is one thing I learned from this, it is that I need more training in the pool.