Endless Summer Triathlon & Duathlon - TriathlonSprint

WOW the water felt cold with the wind blowing and the sun not quite all the way up yet! I waded in to a quick dropoff and waited to start, bobbing up and down in the waves. Straight out to the first buoy was against the current and waves, so it was tough to get into a good swimming rhythm. Turned left at the buoy and was swimming with the current, with good form, but the waves bobbing me up and down made me dizzy if I tried to swim with my head down for more than 6 strokes. Had to keep picking my head up, which wasn't a bad idea anyway for sighting purposes, but kept me from getting into a really good rhythm. Drafted one girl until she flipped over on her back. Turned toward shore at the next buoy, and was immediately in very shallow water - tried to keep swimming but my hand kept hitting the bottom, so I did what everyone else was doing and stood up and ran the last 50 yards or so in. Time from swim start to hitting the beach was 8:20, which I was happy with, but the run to the transition area was long and on ROUGH pavement, so that added another 1:31 onto my swim time.

Given the choppy conditions, there isn't much else I could've done better. I didn't panic and swam well when I could. A wetsuit probably would've helped some, too, though once I got moving I didn't feel cold.

Again I took longer in here than I wanted to, and I'm not entirely sure why. This will be something I'll have to practice some more. I had a little trouble getting one of my socks on b/c my feet were still pretty wet and sandy. Ate 2 more shot bloks and got a quick swig of water.

Move faster!

Got a good hop on my bike and I was off. The loops were of the out-and-back variety...on the OUT I had a nice tailwind helping me maintain 20-21mph, but that meant on the BACK portions I was fighting to maintain 16mph against the headwind. I passed a lot of people. Had a lot of people pass me, too, but it was almost all people on nice tri bikes, so my aerobar-less road bike didn't feel so bad. Drank an entire bottle of Gu2O.

Not much. I really rode this as hard as I could given the wind and the fact that I needed to keep some energy in the tank for the run.

Still can't do a flying dismount, but I got off quick and hustled to my rack. Fumbled with my shoelaces a bit, sucked down a couple ShotBloks, got a swig of water, and I was out of there.

SPEED. LACES. I intended to buy them at my LBS last Thursday when I took my mountain bike to be tuned up, but I forgot.

Didn't feel real speedy off the bike, but my legs weren't too brick-like, either, so I cruised off and grabbed water at each stop even though I felt pretty well-hydrated going into it. First mile was in about 8:41, then I apparently slowed down for the second mile (~9:00) though it didn't feel like it, and started to pick up the pace quite a bit in the last mile (~8:22).

This was a new 3-mile PR for this season for me (previous was 26:15 in a stand-alone 3-miler), so I was quite happy with that.

Met up with my parents and Bandit, drank some water, then walked back to the side of the run course to watch Travis finish the duathlon.


The choppy water. Other than that I gave it as much as I could given my training and race experience (this was just my 3rd tri ever).


Very well-organized race, but it started late and then the awards took FOREVER (we stuck around b/c Travis got 2nd place in his AG for the du - by default and despite a 20-minute delay due to a flat tire, but for his first multi-sport event ever, he was going to take whatever he could get!) because the race director just kept talking needlessly. Decent post-race spread, but you had to walk 3 blocks from the race site to get to it. All in all, a really nice race by the beach - I'd definitely do it again.