Chula Vista Challenge - TriathlonOlympic

Wow do I suck at swimming straight! I did a terrible job of drafting, which would have helped my navigation if I picked a better swimmer from the start. I must have gone 20+m off to the right a dozen times. I hate to think how much further I swam due to my poor navigation.

practice swimming straight...start fast so I can draft from a strong swimmer!

I had a tough time getting my suit off...had help getting it off...I bent over too much, got dizzy and almost fell over with my suit around my ankles! Once I got it off, I was good with running my bike to the mount and jumping on...clipped in quickly and was off!

NOT bend over to induce a head rush and dizzy spell! Need bodyglide on my heels to help with removal. RELAX and I'll go faster!

I felt like I was going faster than I was....those darn hills! Did lots of passing and was passed a handful of times...a few guys flew by me! Ended up pacing behind a guy in my age group for the final 4 to 5 miles...he had the nice full tri bike (vs my older road bike with bolt-on aero bars), full disc rear, aero helmet, etc....I was able to keep pace to the finish... that helped me finish strong.

Do more hill workouts leading up to the race...

Very nice set up for T2....a volunteer takes your bike for you....they have already called ahead with your race number so another volunteer has your T2 bag ready for you. Quick switch of running gear out of bag and on, bike helmet and shoes into bag and they take it back from you....very nice!

For the first time I tried rolling my socks up so I could unroll them on quickly....in theory, would work well...BUT, I unrolled them upside down...2 times! Practice this or maybe use a marker to mark one side "UP"!

It's obvious that running is my strength as I had the 2nd best run time in my AG. I felt good overall. It did take me about a mile to get my running legs. I ended up pacing with a pretty strong woman runner through to mile 3, then I was feeling very good so I pushed and left her behind. I don't think I was passed at all....but certainly did lots of passing myself. Course was marked pretty well with the exception of the last mile...a few places I literally had to GUESS which way to go as I couldn't see anyone in front of me at that point. Finish was a mild uphill that wasn't too bad.

Need to do much more work on the bike to run in training...figure out how to get my running legs a bit faster. Otherwise I felt good about the run.

Walked around, stretched.


training...I'm still ramping this up.


This was their first event...pretty good for a first event. Would have liked to see a bit more "stuff" for the post-race. Not much selection on post-race food or drink. This was a tough event with the hills...train accordingly!