Philadelphia Triathlon in Fairmount Park - TriathlonSprint

I felt pretty confident when I waded into the water and waited for the start. I seeded myself in the middle with a direct line to the first couple of buoys to avoid the contact with other racers.

The horn went off I just settled into a zone. I wasn’t worrying about my speed, just my technique. Every ten strokes or so I would try and sight, but the sun was in my eyes, so a lot of times I wouldn’t get a good view of the next buoy. I ended up swimming out of line for most of the race. There was a huge pack of swimmers and then me out the to side all by myself!

I stayed comfortable the whole race and that could have been my problem. I have consistently swam faster than this in any of my swim sessions. There were two main things I can take from this race: 1) seed myself with the pack so I won’t get too far off track and swim an extra 100 yards 2) push it harder! My heart rate was a joke coming out of the water. You would have thought I just woke up and hopped out of bed! Lesson learned.

Sight better. Push myself harder in the middle.

I hustled out of the water and ran to my rack. This is the biggest transition I have ever raced at, so I made sure to be precise in everything I did. I put my shoes and helmet on and ran off.

Nothing.

I had an awesome bike ride today! The course was very fast and flat with the exception of one hill. It was a two loop course so I encountered this hill twice.

It was the hill right after Strawberry Mansion Bridge. It was a pretty steep incline that I could have dealt with really well normally, but there is a steady climb before the high grade hill. You would ride into this giant hill with no momentum or speed. I just stuck in my saddle and powered up the hill. On my first loop I passed over 20 people on the hill, and I passed about 5 on the second loop.

The rest of the ride was fairly flat. I found a gear that felt comfortable and hammered at 20 MPH for most the ride. There were occasional rolling hills that would force me to change gears, but nothing crazy.

As I mentioned before I started 50 minutes after everyone, so this course was mine for the taking. I just sat on the left of the course and picked off rider after rider. I must have passed over 200 or 300 riders throughout the course. I was only passed a handful of times, so it was a real confidence boost heading into the run to be passing so many people.

There is a downhill right before the transition that I was able to get up to 32 MPH and pass a couple more riders before slowing down to dismount.

Nothing – I felt like I rode really well and made no mistakes.

The second I got off the bike my stomach started to feel really weird. I thought I was going to puke right then and there. I *gingerly* walked to my rack and got the bike on the rack. I took a couple of deep breaths and prepared myself for the run. I knew something wasn’t right.

Jog my bike to the rack? My stomach didn’t feel well though so I didn’t want to aggravate it anymore by running through transition.

I jogged out on a patch of grass for the first portion of the run. I took three waters and dumped them on my head to try and keep me cool. I didn’t feel so good though.

I was running at a 7:30 pace it felt like for the first half mile, but started to develop a cramp. I can handle pain, but this cramp spread across my stomach and started hurting me on both sides. Every step I took was like getting punched twice in the gut. I had a to walk.

I walked for about 30 seconds and was forced to abandon my goal time of 22:xx. I wanted to run the rest of the race and have fun so I kept it going at a slow pace. I ran with one woman for about five minutes before getting some energy and speeding up. I was able to really pick it up and finish strong, but that is all I could give.

I had energy left in my legs, but my stomach was acting really crazy. I was burping a lot and the cramps hurt a lot. I did manage to have some fun though. Running and talking to the other racers really helped get rid of my negative thoughts.

I don’t think I could have done anything differently. Maybe my nutrition was the issue, but I couldn’t push it because of my stomach. If that weren’t an issue I am almost certain I would have broken 23 in the run at the very least.

Ran through the finish and got my finisher’s medal and some water. As expected, my stomach rejected whatever I ate in the morning and before the race. It was mostly stomach acid so maybe my problem was that I didn’t eat enough before the race. I really just enjoyed the scene there. I may not race at this big of a race for a while so I watched other finishers and caught up with some family.


Poor sighting on the swim and cramping on the run. Poor nutrition I suppose, too.


I didn't do as well as I had expected, but this race was amazing. The expo was huge and the race director really knew what he was doing. The volunteers were incredible and I tried to thank as many as I could. It's worth a trip for any east coasters looking for a race next spring!