Take on the Heat Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I had a great jump into the pool -- flattened out very quickly and didn't get too deep -- which let me quickly catch the person in front of me. I drafted him nearly the entire swim, since his speed was just right. On the last length I passed him then grabbed the ladder to exit, rather than try to clamber out at the wall.

Nothing. The draft made for a more comfortable swim. My pushoff under the rope were good, allowing to regain the draft very quickly.

Had a smidge of trouble with socks (I had blisters the week before from trying to break in the new shoes without sock, so I decided I didn't want to chance it today.), and my glasses had blown off my helmet. However, I had a short, but fast, run to the mount line and a *fantastic* flying leap onto the bike. I smoked the person who left transition ahead of me but was trying to get feet into shoes already mounted on the bike.

Gotta get the feet calloused to run without socks.

I was really rocking on the bike course today. I was pushing hard, but it felt good. Legs strong, cadence was staying high, nice and aero position. I was definitely making up time on people ahead of me. Then on the northwest corner of the second loop -- CRASH!!!

We had finished coming up a hill, but I was still carrying a lot of speed from the prevoius downhill. I had just passed several people, so I started the turn from the outside. It was a fairly tight corner (90-deg turn from a single lane into a single lane (we were coned in). I don't know if I was just going too fast, or the wind may have caught the disk (South wind; turn was heading north turning east). Back tire starts to slide... I brake to control it, then whole bike starts moving sideways... car was turning outside the coned lane, so I couldn't swing wide into the next lane.... Next thing I know, the whole bike is skidding sideways just a bit before I high-side to the left. Very fortunately, the car had pulled ahead enough that I didn't hit it as I fell into that lane.

Landed on left side and rolled a bit to absorb impact. Got up, grabbed bike (now I was pissed -- at who, I don't know, probably myself) and took off again. Fortunately, bike seemed to be working fine.

Could feel some road rash on my back, but it didn't feel too bad. But, ow, that left elbow really hurt! Hope that's not fractured, cause it hurts to put too much weight on it. Did finish the second half of the loop pretty well.

Not crash. :) Or, possibly, maybe conceivably, could be imagined... slow down a bit entering corners.

Pretty good dismount. Realize again that arm was bad when I went to rack bike and couldn't lift it! Had to turn around and use other arm.

Lost a few seconds when I realized one nose piece of my glasses had come off. I glanced back, spied it on the ground, and turned around a few feet to grab it.

Worried a bit when I got shooting pain in my injured arm coming out of transition. Fortunately, if I kept the arm bent in a normal running position, it was OK, so it didn't slow me down. (For a while I wondered if I was going to have to run 5K with my arm hanging limply at my side.)

Legs felt great coming off the bike. Found a solid pace and slowly picked off runners ahead of me. I think I ramped up pretty steadily, with a solid ending effort starting at least 3/4 of a mile out. Had been on the lookout for Dave Young, and caught up to him at mile 2.

Not much. Might have pushed a little harder in early miles, but it would probably have impacted the later segments. All in all, a solid effort.

First thing I asked for was the medical tent. The irony of it all was that this was a charity race benefiting local fire, police, and emts, so there were pleny of them around. Unfortunately, there wan't much they could do. We rinsed the dirt off the scrapes on my back, but they had no way to tell how severe the elbow way.

So I kept a baggie of ice on it. Munched a few bagels and water.


Only additional training.


Woo-hoo!! A crash on the bike, and I still pulled first in my age group. Who'd of thought? And not just squeeking in -- I was six minutes ahead of the next person in my AG! (Now the 35-39 AG would have been a different story. I would have been lucky to have held on to 3rd there.)

Race ran pretty well. Got started just a little late (15min), but transitions, routes, etc. were well marked and well manned. The pool facility is fantastic. The course was a little easy overall, but nice and fast if you want to test your speed training.

The special division for the Fire, Police, and EMTs was a neat touch. Wish one of the fire trucks (and/or police cars) would have been open for kids to play on. Not much to do afterwards, but they did handle awards quickly once they did finally start.