Jeff Bratz takes 3rd (Pictured Left) and Reed Rinderknecht wins in Newton sprint triathlon. The race consisted of a 500 meter swim, a 18 mile bike ride, and a 5k run. Here is how Bratz interpreted his race. The Swim was a pool swim so that made for a bit of interesting swimming as we didn't sign up until race day and this was a TT start I got seeded behind many slower swimmers in front of me. Navigated slower swimmers and found myself with a decent time.

Got out of pool and onto bike with a decent transition. Headed out to the turnaround point and started passing folks pretty quickly. Goals here were as follows: 1) Open up legs and see how I felt after three hard weeks of training 2) Not to get passed by teammate Rinderknecht before the turnaround(Reed had a 5 minute later start than I did). Bike went well didn't get passed by Reed until ~mile 14 of bike. Felt pretty solid and had passed many of the folks that had started ahead of me. One guy that I had passed(with a 5 minute head start was drafting off of me after the pass) and I leap frogged into the finish line with him leading me into T2 with a 25 second lead.

Quickly transitioned and saw him in front of me about 200 yards. This off-season has been a lot of running faster(for me), and I felt "great" off the bike. Caught him within 1/4 mile and as I passed him, patted him and "encouraged" him to run with me-he didn't. Ran 7:41/mile... very pleased with that. Last season I was struggling to run 8:30's.

Net result 3rd place OVERALL. This was a VERY small race, but I am still pleased with the outcome. Great showing for the team as we got 1st and 3rd place overall.