Tri Indy - TriathlonOlympic

The next best thing to swimming in a pool! There were a few turns, but it was mostly just long straightaways along the canal, requiring almost no sighting because you could just judge your distance from the side. The water was clearer than local lakes, although there was a layer of slimy algae on the bottom. It was a little choppier than I expected in a few spots. I haven't been swimming enough lately, so I didn't feel strong in the water, but just settled in and slogged it out.

A pretty good transition. I had a great spot on the rack, and the transition area was nice and grassy.

Could have run a little faster in and out.

OK, this was actually the best leg of my race except for the little thing about the flat tire. The course was 2x around a loop that went through city streets with lots of sharp turns, rough pavement, and RR crossings (2 per loop). Because of all the slowing for these things, I tried to keep my pace above 21 mph on the straightaways. Unfortunately, near the end of the first loop I ran over some glass in the road and got a flat. I jumped off the road, pulled the wheel off, and started changing the tube as fast as I could. A few guys going past shouted encouragement, which I appreciated. I got the new tube in and tried out my CO2 cartridge thingy, which I'd never actually used before, but how hard could it be? After all, I used to use CO2 cartridges in the lab. Two cartridges later, I still had a flat tube, so I grabbed my little frame pump and started pumping, knowing I can only get the tire up to ~70 psi with that thing. Good enough. I started shoving the wheel back on (the back wheel of course, so I'm coated with chain grease), and POP! Apparently the tube was sticking out. So I pulled the wheel off, took a deep breath, and started again. Talking myself through it out loud. This time I couldn't get the tire back on the rim to save my life. Finally got it, pumped it up as far as I could, wrangled the dang thing back on my bike, stuffed the two dead tubes in the back of my tri shorts, and jumped back on my bike. Rub rub rub. Fixed the brake pad, got back on my bike, and tried to make the best of loop 2. According to my bike computer, I averaged 20.7 mph during the time I was actually riding, which is great for me. Unfortunately, the official results include my extraordinarily slow tire changing, so they don't look as good ;>.

Not get a flat. Absent that, fix it faster.

Coming off the bike course the volunteers are yelling "slow down! slow down!" Slow down? Don't you realize I have like 20 minutes to make up? I get off my bike and run into T2 where I find 3 spectators standing right where I need to put my bike, one of them is leaning on the rack. I yelled, "Excuse me! RIGHT THERE!" I feel kind of bad about that - they looked like really nice people and they got out of the way super fast. But what the heck were they doing there?

Ask nicely, as I would expect my 5 year old to do.

This was the disappointing part of the race for me. The flat tire was just one of those things you can't really control, but my goal for this race was to finish with a strong run, and I ended up just trying to hang on to finish. I started out fine, with a sub-8:00 pace for the first 2 miles, but then I just ran out of gas. Clearly I need to work on my endurance.

So many choices! Ride more, run more, figure out race nutrition.

Tried to walk around but I needed to get out of the sun, so I finally gave up on the walking around and just sat in the shade drinking a coke to settle my stomach. I'm SO glad they had the coke!


Endurance. And broken glass on the bike course. And poor mechanical skills.


A fun, well-organized race. Great, helpful volunteers running around everywhere and posted at all the right places to keep the race safe.