Columbia Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

expectations were low as swimming is my weakest and i have not trained much this year. The Y pool I go to is straight out of Cocoon and I just can't jazzed to get down there. Need a new solution.

I did teach myself the 2 beat kick on Friday and tried it in the race. I was slow and a bit uncoordinated but i don't think i sacrificed much speed and I came out of the water not at all tired like I usually am. I will stick with the 2 beat.

I did have issues with my timing strap. It felt like I was going to loose it throughout the swim. Tried to wrestle with it 3 times to no avail. I was worried the Kayakers were going to think i was drowning and yank me out so i just hoped for the best. Fixed it in T1.

train. I deserved this slow performance with the time i invested in my swimming.

approx t1 as times were mixed with bike.
Took a little long as I had to fix my timing strap. Also put bike shoes on rather than leave attached to the bike as the ground was wet and the hill coming out of T1 was steep.

I was having a great ride. Nearly half way through, going through a very fast section, I was thinking to myself how cool it was to be blasting through the rolling countryside on a Sunday morning with 1500 friends. Right then my tire started to wobble and I realized I had a flat.

I pulled off onto a lawn and got to work on a tube change. To my delight, I replaced the tube pretty quickly (my current rim/tire combo is a bitch), but when I screwed the CO2 cannister on I didn't realize the valve was open and lost all my gas! doh. That was really deflating (obvious pun intended).

So I stood on the side of the road holding up my empty cannister hoping someone would chuck me one. But, the reality was people were moving way to fast so I knew that wasn't going to happen even if someone wanted to help.

At this point I was resigned to wait for the fixie truck. After a couple of minutes a lady came out of her driveway down the road and yelled to me asking if I was ok. I said I needed a pump and she turned around and ran to her house. Grabbed my wheel and ran down to her driveway and she met me with a pump. I met her dog and her two daughters who were bringing lawn chairs out to watch the race! Pumped up my tire and was off. I lost about 15-16 minutes, but I was stoked that this woman lent me a hand when I thought I was done. Thanks Christine! You made my day.

Other than that it was a great ride. A little wet, a little cold, but a great fun course.

Drank only water and took 3 GUs. Felt like the right amount.

learn how to use C02!! Squeeze another cannister in my bag, too, just in case.

T2 is the reason i do triathlon. i love it. my life's work will be complete when i podium T2. 5th in my AG, but I know what i did wrong, so lookout, Terrenzo!

not run by my spot.

great run. never broke 50 min in an Oly before and that was the goal. looks like i made up 33 places in my age group and 275 OA on the run + T2 which is pretty cool.



nothing. felt i performed a great run to pretty much the max of my current abilities.

Chrissy W put on my medal. Very cool of her to hang out and do that for so many finishers.


The flat didn't help! But i am honestly glad I got the flat. I needed to learn how to change one in a race and dealing with the adversity that came with it was a good thing. shit happens out there that we don't expect and we just have to adjust our game plan. After i fixed the flat, i was in such a good mood for the rest of the race. I think I thanked every volunteer and tried to encourage as many other struggling racers out there that I could along the way.


food was kind of weak and the transitions were very tight. other than that, great race. will do it again.