Commit to be Fit Giant Eagle Triathlon - Olympic Course - TriathlonOlympic

Right from the start this swim felt good. I lined up on the beach in about the 2nd or third row back. When we were told to start, I ran into the water, kinda picking a gap between other guys, then dove in and started swimming as soon as the water was knee deep. No dolphin diving. Fingers brushed sand on the first stroke, then I was in deeper water. We were to the first turn buoy FAST. Like, crazy FAST. Made the turn and caught some chop and splash in the mouth/lungs... I just coughed as best I could while continuing to swim and got through it. For the rest of the first lap I mostly found some space to work in and/or pushed past people. I got busted in the chops once by some guy's watch.. that stung a little but only for a minute. At the end of the first lap, I had somebody actually grab my ankle and pull me backward. Unfortunately, the start of my second lap coincided with the start of one of the other waves and I got caught in a massive washing machine. Started doing a fair bit of Tarzan'ing to pick a path through them all and basically didn't play well with others as I forced my way through the crowd. Got through that group just in time to catch the wave in front of that by the time I got to the second turn on the second lap. Had someone swim across my back at a 90-degree angle, which was interesting. Made the turn and tried to pick it up a little to get clear of this second pack, then just cruised to the exit buoy and was out of the water and running to T1. Dropped my goggles and cap as I was running and had to stop and go back for them real quick. Only cost me perhaps 3-5 seconds, but it was still annoying.

This swim course was definitely short... there is just no way that was 1500m, but I swam the same course as everyone else, so it's all good.

Not much, it was a good swim for as crowded as it got at times.
I could also try to avoid dropping my goggles and swim cap on the run to T1.

Extra time putting gear into a bag for transport to finish line

Move faster, as always.

This was a really nice ride, but not entirely what I expected. Before the race, everyone was talking about how it was "all downhill"... well, it was, but I swear I felt like I was going uphill half the time. I don't know for sure, but it felt like we had some headwinds, too.

The only real hills were in the first 6 miles out of T1, then it was pretty much a straight shot south into downtown Columbus. It was mostly uneventful and I just tried to pay attention to using gears that allowed me to stay close to a cadence of 90 rpm. I apparently need to work on that, because my average was way lower, hehe. Overall, a very solid time, but I think that with doing some actual work on the bike, I can be a lot faster.

Tons of fun on this ride, and once we hit High St it was just simply awesome. FAST. For the first time ever, I pulled my feet out of my shoes while still on the bike and rode to the dismount line with my feet on top. I'd never even practiced it. It went well.

Be in better bike condition going into the race. I'd like to do this ride in one hour, flat.

I have no idea where the time went as I had a really short run into my spot, but I guess I did kinda dilly-dally a bit in there. The run out was fairly long, and I was taking it slow.

Not sure... move my butt a little faster??

What a nice run! Beautiful weather and my legs stayed with me for almost the entire thing.

The last few Oly's I've done, my run has sucked. The leg pain has been horrible and the heat has always had me totally overheated. So, before this race, I decided that if I just held back early, perhaps tried to get my stride down early, and then just cruise at a training pace, I should be able to PR the run... sure, enough, I did.

I made a point of paying close attention to my pace on the Garmin through the first half mile, holding myself back to nearly 9:00/mile pace and tried to make a point of keeping my hips forward and really getting good leg extension behind me to try to stretch the hip flexors. It seemed to work! I'm going to make a point of doing this every time I come off the bike, now. After that first half mile, I settled into a nice run at about 7:45/mile that didn't feel like I was working too hard. The first few miles clicked off pretty easily and it wasn't until about mile 4 that I started to feel the legs getting really tired. It didn't occur to me until just now, but perhaps I should have tried over-emphasizing the leg extension again because maybe things were just getting tight? It seemed like they had aid stations at every kilometer. I only took water a couple of times, Gatorade once. At mile 4 or 5 I dumped one water over my head to cool down a little. Anyway, I didn't do the leg extension thing and they continued to hurt more as the run wore on, and my pace slowly began to drop off. I just did my best to block it out and keep moving along and before I knew it I had passed mile 5 (and my pace had dropped to about 8:30), then I was making the turn onto Neil St which is the last stretch before the finish. Right at mile 6, Robin (sungirl919) and her husband Steve (smuskopf) where there with large American flags for all of us Team RWB people to carry through to the finish. I grabbed the flag from Robin and opened my stride and cruised to the finish at about 7:00/mi holding that flag proud and with a smile on my face.

For as much running as I've done over the last year, and for as little work I do on the other sports, this continues to be where I can pick up the most time and where I think I still need the most work. I think I need to actually start doing speed work now. Knocking 5 1/2 minutes off my run would have given me a Top 5 finish in AG.... however, the fact that I was able to run the whole thing without overheating and/or walking, is a positive step for me.

A complete lack of training lately.
Mostly just running since March (aside from races), and not even hardly that over the last month.