HITS Triathlon Series: Marble Falls - Olympic Course - TriathlonOlympic

This was a first of many things on the swim for me. First time above a typical sprint distance swim. First time in an open water swim competition. First time in a wave start. First time swimming in a wetsuit in race conditions.

Wetsuit buoyancy was a real pleasant surprise. Made treading water bearable before the start. I am admittedly a weak swimmer so my mind was playing a lot of tricks on me as I waited for the horn to send us off. That first turn buoy looked really far away. The water sure was cold on my face. Are there alligators in this water. But mercifully the horn went off and away I and the rest of the racers went.

I was prepared for a much worse time in the start. I took a few kicks, had a few people swim across or over me. But not nearly what I had built it up in my mind to be. Found some open water and got into my slow but reliable stroke.

Somewhere about 200 meters in a wave of panic shot over me and for the briefest of moments I thought about pulling out. I was hyperventilating, and my stroke was falling apart. I took a second and rolled onto my back to gather my thoughts and strengthen my confidence. Gave myself a quick HTFU pep talk and rolled back into freestyle.

That first straight away seemed to take forever. It could have been the fact that I was swimming in a shoelace pattern because I wasn't sighting as often as I should have and was over correcting when I did. Swam well past the first turn buoy and this would be a repetitive problem. Made the turn and headed for the next one. All in all I was feeling good. I wasn't gassed like I had been in all my sprint swims. I was breathing well. I just was getting slowly dropped from the pack of male swimmers.

The girls were 3 minutes behind and I got caught by the fast ones on the backstretch. They took pity on me and didn't beat me up too bad. I continued on in my slow methodical pace. I am terrible at sighting I have discovered and so I definitely need more work on that if for no other reason than to cut down the distance I end up swimming.

Sight better.

Came out of the water on rubbery legs. I had read about this so it wasn't a big shock, but none the less it takes a little adjustment. Hit the ramp up and got my zipper down. They had wetsuit strippers at the top who were awesome. I hit my back and the wetsuit was off before I could say zippity do dah. Up and a quick thank you and I was off to the fun part.

Dropped my suit in the box. Took a seat and rolled on the socks, strapped on the shoes. Strapped up the helmet, on with the sunglasses. Grab the bike and I'm rolling. Hit the bike out gate and hear a strange noise.

I get to the dismount line and see my chain dropped. Frustrating but no big deal. Grab the chain and get it onto the big ring. Go to turn the crank to finish "threading" the chain onto the ring. And then it happens.....my pedal and crank arm come off in my hand. Panic kicks in. I look down and the retaining bolt on my crank assembly has come out.

One of the volunteers helps me to scour the transition area in hopes of finding it. A call goes out to the support wagon and they start heading back. After 20 minutes of fruitless searching I am sitting next to my bike waiting for bike support and the slim chance they can get me on the road.

They arrive after about 25 minutes with a bike pump in hand and say "hey buddy you got a flat needs fixing" to which I respond "a flat? man if I had a flat I'd be long gone by now, I change those things like a NASCAR pit crew, this is my problem" pointing to the place where the bolt should go. The support crew tech's face goes immediately from a smile, to a frown. He says to me "buddy I can fix a lot of things on a bike, but that right there has ended your race. It is a piece specific part and I wouldn't feel safe putting you out on the roads with a paper clip solution."

I had already made peace with the fact that I was staring at my first ever DNF. The support wagon was a Hail Mary pass and I knew chances were slim. I thanked the guy for coming in and talked it over with one of the timers. I decided to wait for my training partner to come in from the bike and help him pace the run.

It was a real disappointment for me as I thought this was my first chance to beat him. He has always come out on top in the sprints we raced because he built a big enough lead in the swim that I wasn't able to quite make it all up over the bike course. We run about the same pace normally. He is a strong swimmer relative to me but a weaker biker than I am especially when it comes to climbing which this course offered a lot of. Looking at our results he had about a 10 minute cushion on me coming off the bike, and I feel confident that I could have made that up over the 25 miles of Hill country biking.

So I parked my bike. Worked on my tan. Whined a little on Facebook and waited for my buddy.

Check my bike top to bottom

So my race was shot, thanks to malfunctioning equipment. Still no reason not to get a good workout in so I was waiting for my training buddy to arrive off the bike. I was going to try and pace him off the pike to reach his goal of 3:15 or better.

He arrived and immediately more concerned with what happened to me. I explained as he racked up his bike and got ready to head out for the run. He seemed pretty bummed but his spirits were lifted when I told him I was running with him.

He took off and immediately I am trying to pull him back, because the pace he is setting isn't going to be sustainable. They typical mind playing trick on you off the bike. We fall into a good pace around something I think he should be able to maintain and all is going well for the first 1/2 mile. And then they wheels came off the wagon. He had fried his legs on the bike course trying to stay out in front of me. He really had nothing left for the run.

His breathing was rapid and labored almost from the get go and despite my best efforts he couldn't get it under control. To compound the problem he didn't stop on the bike course or in transition to make use of the facilities and he really had to go. Oddly enough there were no Port-O-Johns out on the course. So he "improvised".

The entire rest of the run was a series of short run and walks. I would urge him to make it to the next cone, and he would and I'd say next cone, and finally he got wise to my game and would walk. He was extremely frustrated as this was one of the worse runs he has had in a long while. All the while though he toughed it out and drove on and I kept a close eye on the finishing clock, keeping him apprised on how it was looking to reach his goal. When we started the run I was thinking a sub 3 was in his future, but halfway through I realized his goal was becoming sketchy.

The last half of the race was mostly downhill so that helped some, but he really had nothing left to give. So we continued to run as far as he would and then walk til he was ready to try again.

Finally we rounded the turn and could see the finish. I told him "walking isn't allowed when you're within sight of the finish line" and we kept on shuffling in. He said he wanted to "finish strong" and I told him "hey man I'm out here for you we'll go as fast as you want". About 100 yards from the finish line he kicked it into high gear and I matched his pace plus a little extra. This spurred him to up it even further and I resonded in kind. With about 50 yards left we were sprinting (or as much of a sprint as we could) down the finish chute and the crowds that were watching were going crazy. We crossed the line and he got his medal. I checked the Garmin and our max speed which was the closing 50 yards was a 4:00/mile pace which for us is moving.

Not have a broken bike, and not walk. But hey I was out of the race and doing it to support a training buddy so that day if he wanted to walk, then we were walking. Next time though if he is walking I'm gonna smoke check his @$$.

Refreshments in the recovery tent. Swapping race and or hard luck stories with other participants. Packing up our gear and rolling out.


A $0.60 piece of equipment.


I really enjoyed my HITS excursion. Other than the pain of a DNF it was a great weekend race experience. All the organizers were really nice. Everything seemed to go off well without a hitch and the transition area was top of the line.

Definitely do this series if you have a chance.