Columbia Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Focused on sighting every 6th stroke. Stayed far right and looked for orange turn buoy. As I neared the buoy a swimmer kept crossing in front of me, apologizing and then doing it again. I finally stopped, let her go and moved to her left with a clear shot for the turn buoy. After rounding both turn buoys, hugged the yellow markers all the way in. Mostly swam by myself, occassionally passed a purple (or pink) cap. At the end, stayed to the far left close to the buoys and swam until my hands touched bottom. Stood up and jogged to the bike racks.

Nothing! It was a perfect swim for me! The first time I swam the entire distance without panicking, breast stroke, or anything. Just a nice, steady, comfortable swim!!!! Loved it! AND it was a PR :)

A little out of breath from the run from the water. Otherwise everything went smooth.

Be in better shape to be able to run faster through transition. Tough to run uphill with the bike...

My plan was to keep my heart rate between 153 and 155 and power as close to 120 watts as my heart rate would allow. I started with a pretty high heart rate (upper 160's) and the first hill made it tough to get the heart rate down. Focused on getting heart rate down and getting nutrition in. Then was able to work hard to keep power at 120 - hard to do on the downhills, but was really getting good at knowing what gears I needed. Got passed by tons of men, and several women in my age group. Some of the women I played tag with, I would pass them on the downhill and they would pass me on the uphill. At one point someone was drafting me for quite a while. She finally passed me and then another women told me she saw the judges take her number so she probably got penalized. I was suprised because she was - seriously drafting - very close to my back tire - no pretending about it. Whatever. I had a little 70 year old lady pass me - wow - she was solid muscle! I kept with my plan and by the end of ride had passed 3 men who had passed me earlier. I noticed on the way back the wind seem to pick up and it was harder to keep the power up, my heart rate was climbing so I lowered the power - it was about this time that I started passing the men. All in all, I was happy with the ride. I had not worked on hills because I had been training for (and raced in) a flat half iron 2 weeks prior, so was curious how I would actually do on this course.

Average Heart rate 154, Power Average Pedaling 115 watts, moving 111.

Practice more on hills.

I thought I had done pretty good, but my time seemed a little long to me. Perhaps it was the fuel belt that I had to grab from the cooler.

just move faster - -my garmin didn't seem to be working and I probably should have ignored it and just run....might have slowed me up a bit.

glad I had previewed this course the weekend before. I was aware of the hills and hoped I would be okay. Because my garmin wasn't working, I had no idea what my heart rate was. I had planned to target 158. I think I have a pretty good idea what that feels like, so I just decided to wing it. I realized I was going way too fast at the start, and slowed down to catch my breath and get my heart rate stable. Passed the little 70 year old lady early in the run. Walked a little on the hill across the lake and then again after the water stop in the neighborhood. Walked through the water stop in the neighborhood on the way back because I had to refill my water bottle. Glad I had my own nutrition and water bottle. Nutrtion made a huge difference! Once I made it through the last hill coming up to the last water stop across from the lake, I knew I was on the home stretch (too bad they don't have mile markers on the course). I was feeling pretty good, so kept it steady on the sunny route. I had walked the final portion of the run (backwards from the finish line) so knew exactly where I wanted to sprint - as soon as I crossed the wood bridge and saw the tents on the hill - I flew. It was awesome. There were 6 or 7 people in front of me and I passed them all like they were standing still. LOVE a strong finish!!

Practice more on hills - - I would not have had to walk, if I was better prepared for the hills.

walked up the hill to get a chocolate milk and meandered over towards the finish line to find other BATC folks. Didn't see anyone, so headed over to the BATC tent.


Having done my first half iron on May 7th and focusing on flats for that race and not the hills for this race. No worries - - - I decided to treat this as a good training experience to see where my abilities are right now. It was fun!!


A really fun race. I was very relaxed going in to this race, because I had just finished my first half iron - so after training for the half iron distance - this was "just an olympic" - whoa, never thought I'd say that! It's also wonderful to be an early wave for once - - I am usually the very last wave and hate it - so this was a chance to see a race from a whole new perspective. I actually had to wait for others to finish instead of coming to the finish line and finding everything closed up and carted away. It was a beautiful day too, which made it all that much nicer.