Great Buckeye Challenge - Mini (Olympic) Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Wouldn't you know, the new goggles that worked wonders in the previous 2 weeks of training gave me a perpetual slow leak on the left side. This is not an excuse for me being slow. My excuse for being slow was the lack of an efficient kick and poor breathing which kept my head up more than necessary. However, the leaky goggle sure was annoying...

swim, swim, and swim more... I know I can learn to do it much more efficiently. I work way too hard in the water.

Hit the lap timer on the Garmin into T1, found my rack easy enough and managed to get out of the wetsuit somewhat efficiently. Glasses, helmet, shoes, bike shuffle

Bike mount line 10 ft beyond the mats distracted me and I forgot to hit the lap timer to capture the start of the bike... DOH!

I managed to hit my goal (20 mph avg) across the course, so not too disappointed.

Still need to tune the front derailleur to get into the low gear a little easier. had to force it a few times and take care to not throw a chain. Still need to work on cornering in aero a bit, had to come off the bars too much... work on cornering, especially on gravel... but at least I kept the rubber side down this time...

Got my feet out of the shoes on the bike, but I probably was pushing in too high of a gear at the end of the bike, and wound up getting a cramp in my calf while trying to get my second foot out of my bike shoe. This caused my feet to slip off the pedals, resulting in my shoes taking a couple of revolutions on the pedals. No harm, no foul other than a few nice scuffs on the heels of my bike shoes, but I probably lost any advantage of taking the feet out early, especially with the 90 degree left turn at the dismount line.

Next time, down shift a little bit earlier to bring my cadence up and hopefully loosen up the legs a bit.

Felt pretty good off the bike, despite the knot in the calf from T2, took it easy for the first ~400m until I felt it loosen up and then opened up into my cadence. Started looking for runners to pick off, found a few 40s and 50s on the calves that made me confident I was making up time from my river rock imitation.

Honestly, push it a little harder... I worked the last mile but wasn't suffering. I met my goal of sub-9:00 miles but I could've pushed it up a bit.

Walked, Coke, Water, and then went back to cheer on the Twinklebug, giving her a swift, verbal k!ck in the @$$ as I watched her edge out a 20-something across the mats.


Lack of time to train as many miles, and more importantly, as many laps as I wanted to get in the pool. I really need to win the lottery and train full-time.


Only comment would be that the "geography" around the transition area was a bit compressed. Mount/Dismount lines were pretty close and the chute leading into bike dismount was fairly narrow compared to other races and led to some bottlenecks. Overall, a good race and great logistical support from HFP.