Capt Hiram's River Challenge Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

2 start waves. Men first. Then women. Felt good, but stood up a couple times just to orient and get bearings after collisions. Seemed very quick. Enjoyable, especially with wetsuit. Swam with tempo trainer at 1:12. Tried drafting a bit on way back but few options. There was some body to body collisions, but it was minor. Found myself veering off course several times, so tried sighting more frequently. If had swam more straight, would have been out of the water sooner! Still, wetsuit speed just destroys non-wetsuit speed! A bunch of guys were wearing no wetsuit or a shorty.

Sight more frequently and put TT on faster pace. 1:10 would have been fine. 1:05 maybe even. Learn to swim straight!

Just a quick little run up sandy beach, through tiki bar, and out into front parking lot. Really cute! Had put body glide on outside of wetsuit at wrists and ankles. That really did the trick! Goggles up, unzipped, and stripped to the waist while running to T1. Then goggles/cap/TT off and in hand by the time I got to bike. Wetsuit off. Stepped into pan of water/popped shot blocks at same time. Sunglasses and helmet on, and I was off. Seat briefly caught on rack, but little to slow me down.

3rd in age group behind :37 and :51. Feel really good about that. This and T2 made a difference and put me within striking distance of AG competitor with much slower transitions. 10/63 overall.

New protocol. Use a gel in T1. No more shot blocks. Hard to chew and swallow while breathing hard. Ended up chewing on them for 1/2 mile on bike then spitting them out.

Really tried to push it and give everything I had. Fueling was screwy. Took a couple gels. First was to make up for initial shot blocks I did not get. Felt queasy a bit after that, but knew I wanted another gel 3-4 miles out of the run for extra energy. Took it around 1.5 miles out, so was feeling yucky at start of run. Water in aero position was tricky, and felt I drank a bit too much. It was not that hot, but I took 3/4 of my aero bottle - probably only needed 1/2. I was passed by about 6-8 bikers. Usually big tree-trunk legged guys on aero bikes I beat out of T1. There was a bunch of drafting and no race officials, which pissed me off. Especially as I was struggling on bike.

Stood a couple times to refresh legs and get back up to a higher cruising speed. Did work on proper pedaling technique, which helped.

Need to concentrate on building power and my stamina on the bike in the off season.

3-way tie for 2nd place in T1. There were 2 :43's and a :45 as well. Again, I was much faster than the guy who came in 5th. 16/63 overall

Nothing.

Legs felt like lead off of the bike. It did not go away the entire run. First guy I passed at about 1/2 mile was one of the big dudes who smoked me on the bike. I got passed by a 30-something shortly after, who looked like he was not even breathing hard. Just gliding along. Kept him in my sights. He congregated with a few guys up ahead by a couple hundred yards. My mind vascillated between "running my race" and trying to catch up to them. Decided to "run my race" instead, at first. Drank a cup and poured a cup on myself at the turnound. I built speed from about 1.5 to 2 mile mark, drawing closer to them, and then at the 2 mile mark, decided to give everything I had. I know I was going at or below 7 min pace because I was breathing very hard and feeling strained. I picked off 3 of the 4 before the final sprint, and the last guy, the race director - in his 20's (!) looked over his shoulder to see me coming, and put on a burst of speed at the end so he finished before me. Very happy with the finishing pace, which met my goal of a sub-8 5k in a Sprint this season. Wish I had timed my splits better, because I knew my target paces and it would have helped me adjust as needed. My run has gotten significantly faster my last three races this season: 8:26/mile, 8:09/mile, 7:50/mile.

Even though I have done a bunch of bricks since my last race, I skipped those in the last couple weeks to spare my Achillles. This would have helped my legs

I would have kept an eye out for guys in my AG passing me as I neared the turnaround. The AG'er who came in 5th beat me by 18 seconds! If I had paid more attention, I would have seen the guy right before I hit the turnaround at 1.5 miles. I would have pushed the pace earlier and might have caught him. I never even saw him pass!

Greeted by kids and parents. Water, juice, chatting.


Need more bike fitness. More bricks and more run tempo work. Want to start paying a little more attention to my competition so I can keep track of AG'ers I'm competitive with. Find that if I have a focus like that, it pushes me to perform at a higher level and dig deeper. Still trying to gauge my limits. On run in particular, feel like I'm holding back, but on a 5k, I may want to push the limits earlier.


Enjoyable small race for a good cause. Volunteers were awesome as were local police. Wish they would have enforced drafting rules because all the guys passing me in the bike were drafting. Post-race food was non-existent. They had water, juice, and gatorade. I saw no food.