Deer Creek Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Somehow, I ended up near the front of the pack at the start, but I just kinda rolled with it. I ran into the water and finally dove in and kinda, sorta, almost kept pace for a little while - then reality kicked me in the arse and it became readily apparent just how different OWS is compared to the pool. My right calf cramped inside the first half mile - right at the 2nd yellow buoy on the first lap. I had to stop and roll over and stretch it. It cramped one more time on the swim. From there on, it was a series of swim for a bit, then pause and see where I was. It wasn't until I was just about to reach the last yellow buoy that I figured out the whole sighting while swimming thing. This swim definitely rammed home for me just how poor my swim fitness is. The breaks in swimming to sight and readjust were actually welcome breaks.

Holy crap, I have GOT to start training more, and better.

For once, transitions weren't a bad thing for me!!

One of these days, I'll practice having the shoes pre-clipped with the flying mounts, but I'm in no hurry for that, yet. Those few seconds are NOT where I'm inhibiting my performances, hehe

Flat out - I went too hard for my abilities.
What's weird to me, is that I felt good while doing it, and I think I found a pretty good position on the bike in terms of being aero, but I left absolutely nothing in my legs for the run and the times showed it. I never felt like my RPE left Z2, but man, my legs were cooked and I didn't even really realize it.

My right calf cramped again during the bike, right at the turn-around for the 2nd lap. I was able to just shake it out a little and pedal through it after about 45 seconds.

I gotta train more.
The entire month of May was all about running to prep for my half-marathon; prep which I did at the expense of ignoring swimming and biking... and I paid for that in this race. The one part of the race I wasn't worried about, the run, was killed by not being prepped for the other two parts.

Lesson learned about training and pacing myself.

This is where I first really learned how cooked my legs were... when they almost buckled under me - twice - running into T2 to rack the bike.
I began to feel the tiredness, and so I took my time changing shoes (I don't remove my feet from the shoes on the bike, I unclip and run with the bike shoes on into T2).

nothing... other than my legs being shot, it was a decent T2. I could have moved faster, but again - I was shot.

Terrible. Just Terrible.
My legs were so done. I could feel it in the hip abductors right away, and I had to slow and walk at least once per mile, and I think I walked nearly 1/4 mile each time. I couldn't even keep the legs moving enough for my heartrate to get up. It was miserable and demoralizing.

I drank a lot during the bike and hit every aid station on the run, so even though I was sweating heavily, I really had to pee the last four miles of the run.... which then had my mind thinking of all of the "pee on the bike" threads on here and how I've never seen a single "pee on the run" thread. So, I held it until I crossed the finish line.

Training, and learn pacing.

A little stretching, ate all kinds of stuff, chatted with BT folk, mourned my performance, lol!


Being poorly trained killed this race for me, as did not knowing how to pace myself on the bike - which is directly related to not training enough.

Part of me says that I should have switched to the Sprint before this, but had I done that, I wouldn't have learned what I learned. So, all in all, it was a very poor showing, but a really good experience.

I think that once I build my endurance, I have a real shot at competing.... but until - and unless - I put in the work to do that, this is what I can expect from myself.

ETA - In retrospect, I shouldn't be hard on myself at all for this performance. This was my first real OWS (I'd only done a short 350m test swim when I got my wetsuit), my first time swimming more than 1,000 meters in 20+ years, and my first bike over 18 miles, ever... on top of doing pretty much zero swimming and biking for the month prior to the race.

Given that, I think I actually have to be pretty darn happy with how I did - and now I need to get my butt in gear with some real training.




This was my second HFP race, and I just really dig their events. The post-race food could have been better, but I've had worse.