Midwest Meltdown Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

A fairly simple start. It was really only me and maybe two others who lined up at the front which made for a clean, smooth gettaway. I had the overall fastest short course swimmer on my left and we went stroke for stroke for a while. Because I had a clear line to the buoys and there was no upcoming traffic I took very few breaths to my left (the "unnatural" side I breath on) and didn't do much sighting. When I did get around to breathing left again he was gone. I didn't think too much about it, whether I dropped him or he dropped me, and I just kept racing.

Stroke felt very efficient and smooth. Dealt with very little traffic - only three waves ahead of me which were all spaced out by 5 minutes apiece - so it was a lonely swim. Exited the water by myself and marched on up to T1.

Nothing. More competition may have pushed me to work a little harder though.

Decent enough, however, there was a little bit of fumbling around with getting my shoes on, clipping my helmet buckle, and getting clipped into my bike.

8/100 OA

. . . . I'm really trying to find something interesting to write here, but I'm not finding it.

Quiet course, with only the few duathletes to contend with. Nice enough tail wind when heading north but not strong enough to make the headwind going south feel annoying. At this point I had completely forgot about the other swimmer from earlier, so I paid no mind to where he or anyone else was. I was just racing hard and racing my race. I began thinking about my 5k and wondering how much it was going to suck, so I kept going back and forth in my mind whether to back off on the bike or keep hammering it.

For the, what, 5th time I've lost a bike shoe in the process of dismounting my bike, except this time I didn't notice it at all. Luckily a volunteer brought it back to my transition spot. I'm not sure what's going on here. This doesn't happen when I practice my dismounts. Does this problem happen to anyone else?

8/100 OA

I forgot my Garmin wrist strap so I had to leave it on my bike. Tracked my run by just using my Timex Ironman watch, so I didn't have the convenience of monitoring my pace and splits but I wasn't terribly bothered by that fact. The first half wasn't the most fun I had. It was slightly uphill and into the wind and I had only a few duathletes out there to keep me company. I did hear a couple of bikers out there yell out my name, but I'm so completely oblivious that I can never identify who's who. I'm usually not paying attention to faces.

It wasn't until I got near the turn around that the one guy ahead of me, Patrick - who did indeed drop me on the swim, came back the other direction and noted that I was probably going to catch him. Up until that point I was just racing my own race, but now I had a goal. I didn't know what I was averaging pace wise but figured that if I just stayed strong and kept everything together I could catch him. I caught him with a little more than half a mile to go and then tried to keep the needle in the red just in case he wanted to latch on and chase me down at the finish.

Talked with Patrick about our race and then with the KCM folks who handed me a celebratory mimosa. Luckily that didn't upset the stomach. However, about an hour after finishing I decided that I would try to consume a beer. It did not go well. Beer + Post Race Stomach <> Fun. When will I learn? I keep trying to have beer after my races but it never goes well. I will likely repeat this mistake in the future.

Talked some more with the local BT folks. Then awards, which only went to the top three overall (no age group awards - but its a small race so understandable). For my efforts I got a $60 gift certificate to Elite Cycling. Very cool.


Smaller race with few competitors to push me.


Good volunteers. This was Elite Cycling's first year running this event after taking over for KLM. Good small race. Good race day communication. I will consider doing this event in the future.