I participated in my first triathlon over the weekend, though only the bike portion. I wanted to see what the bike part of the race is like, and how I felt doing it.

The race : Eppies Great Race "The Worlds Oldest Triathlon"
5.8 mile run down river (wife) , 12.5 bike back up river (me), 6 mile paddle down river (brother).

Got to the race about an hour before start time. Dropped the wife at the start and went upriver to drop off the kayak. By the time we were done, the race had started. Rushed back down to get to the run-bike transition. Plan was to have the wife and brother meet up there and get back to the kayak transition.

Wife didn't really train for the run very much, so she finished around 55 min. Handed off and headed out, probably 20 minutes behind the fast people.

The trail is a pretty flat, windy two lane bike trail. There were over 2000 people in the race, so it seemed pretty crowded to me. Get up to speed and start passing a lot of people. I was passing people most of the race. Going pretty good, not feeling too tired. About a mile out, a woman who started trailing me asked for my pace. I look down and see we're doing 20mph. I decide to hammer out the rest. I get to the finish, hand off the bike and sprint across the bridge to hand off to my brother. He's not on the bridge, not at the end of the bridge, not at the kayak. I beat them back. 5 to 10 minutes they get there and he takes off.

Head back to the start back to the start and pick up all the gear. Everyone seemed to like it, and we'll probably be back next year.

I still had plenty of energy left, so I feel like I should be fine for my first sprint in Nov.