TriAmerica Series: Clermont - International Distan - TriathlonOlympic

Nice, comfortable swim..and nearly 15 minutes faster than last year's Oly! Of course, not swimming a giant loop out away from the course helped immensely. I did spend most of the swim trying to burp. It's surprisingly hard in the water, for some reason. I got whacked pretty good in the side of the head by a faster woman swimmer who was going by. She didn't knock my goggles off though, and she made neat glugging noises when I grabbed her ankles and pulled her under.

..No..not really.. :)

I think this transition time is actually the time from the out of the water mat to the entrance of transition..we had to trot all the way around. I think the transition time might've ended up added to the bike, based on the discrepancy between my computer time and official bike time. If so, that makes the top finishers' 22+ mph averages even more scary!

my "race nutrition" was a Snickers bar, and Gatorade. I won't try the Snickers again, I don't think..just too damn hard to chew on the bike! I dropped my chain on Cherry Lake Road (that sounds kinda dirty, but anyway..). I got it back on quickly, though, and it probably only cost me a minute, tops. I kept a fairly hard pace but tried to spin and save some legs for the run.

My bike computer had the course at 26.2 miles, and 19.3 mph average for something like 1:17 elapsed.

Warming up on the run. I felt sick as I started, but it settled fairly quickly. Left quad was hurting right above the knee, which was unusual..not an area I normally feel. It felt like the precursor to cramping but it didn't happen. As I write this 4 days later, it's still sore..weird. I felt like I was slow but I just plugged along. This was only the 2nd time in 3 months that I'd actually run this far since I've been recuperating from a calf injury.

Not much run training in the last few months.


This was a fun race; I pushed fairly hard but didn't come in all wrecked, and I was ready to train again the next day. That was my aim with this first race of the season. I wanted to see if my swim has improved (it has), I wanted to evaluate my bike fitness (hard to tell, as that was a new course), and I wanted to make sure I could run 6 miles without re-injuring my calf.

On the swim, what a difference a year and some master's classes makes! Last year in my first race I was absolutely freaked out looking at the 400 yard sprint course and had to backstroke to calm down and breathe at one point. This year I pretty much plugged away...I had time to think about my navigating, fellow swimmers, how my stroke looked, and even looked at my watch to try and estimate my time.

On the bike I had some lower back pain that had me standing up and trying to straighten my waist periodically, which basically made me look like I was trying to hump my stem. I'm sure I looked odd. I hope/think this was just a residue from recent roofing work and the fact that I lowered my bars 1" last week.

I forgot my race belt so I needed something to put my run number on. I taped it to a shirt that says "I've Used Up All My Sick Days So I'm Calling In Dead!" Based on my expression when finishing, it was appropriate!

OK, gentle women readers, please consider this the end of the report. Guys, you can continue reading..

The run scenery was something! The UF Trigator women were there, along with a big contingent of midship(wo)men from Annapolis. My favorite, though, was the great looking blond girl who ran by in a white swim suit with "Bling Bling" written on the butt. I had to yell, "Nice bling bling!" and she said Thanks. :)