CB&I Tri - The Woodlands - Triathlon

My goal has been to break 10 minutes on the swim. I decided to try to hang with the big boys and draft as long as possible. I was doing rather well through about 150-200m but veered off course and lost the pack. There was decidingly more contact that when I started outside the main pack.

On the plus side, I only the one navigation error, and I think I passed about 3-4 people just by swimming all the way until my fingers could touch.

Swimming this in under 10 minutes has been a goal of mine, and was the only bright spot on the day.

I lost the pack when I got a little overconfident that I was swimming straight and didn't continue to sight as frequently. .

Did well getting the suit off of quickly. Pretty quick transition for me.

I really started to feel the resutls of being sick on the bike. I felt less energy and when I tried to go faster my stomach got upset and I dry heaved a couple times (gross, I know). It also didn't want to keep any Gatorade down.

I was hoping to average close to 20 mph, so I lost a few minutes due to the lingering illness. In partial fairness to my time, the timing chip detector was about 75 yards from the point where you had to get on and off the bike.

Not get sick

I was moving a little slower, but no mistakes.

I felt AWFUL on the run. I think I dry-heaved four times, every time I tried to pick up some speed.

I thought I was going to finish the run in 29 miuntes, so I was quite happy that it was still somewhat respectable. Ideally I would have been hoping for a time under 25:00.

Not get sick

Walked around and talked to folks. Should have stretched...paying for it today.


Strep throat. I wish I had a few more days to recover. I probably lost about 5 minutes due to the illness.


This is a good race which sells out within days. It is well organized and they alleviated last year's issues by putting timing chips in the race packets. I wanted to make this race one I do every year to benchmark performance. Unfortunately the change in the bike course and my illness prevented just that.

It wasn't any fun getting strep throat 3 days before the race, but I gave it a go anyway. I met my swim goal, so at least I had one positive takeaway.