Pensacola Beach Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Horrible swim. I thought my time would be much worse. I caught a few bad waves early, swallowed some h20, then couldn't settle into rythm as the waves kept interrupting my breathing. I tried to go 3-4 strokes between breaths, but ended up every other stroke w/ch wasn't efficient. Because of the waves and being out of sorts, my line was horrible. Towards the last turn, I realized that I was on the outside of the outside buoys, so had swam farther than necessary. I didn't realize the yellow buoys were in the inside corners. Swam good from the last buoy home, but that was only a very short distance and too late to help my time.

Need to practice open water, ocean swimming in different conditions. This was my 2nd ocean swim tri, but the previous one was flat calm.

Transistion seemed fast, but for some reason the time sheet didn't record my transition time. I had no issues. This was my first time going sockless w/ch made it easier. I didn't however practice leaving my bike shoes clipped in, so I put them on before grabbing the bike. Because of severe wind conditions, had helmet & sunglasses on ground rather than handlebars.

Need to practice leaving shoes clipped into bike to save transistion time.

Averaged 17mph on the way out, 27.8 on way back, overall avg. 20.x mph. I felt like I had a great ride. Was passed by 3 rides, but soon passed two of them back and held them off. I passed lots of folks on the way out. On the way back, only a few. Sometimes hit 31-32mph on the way back.

Maybe pushed a bit harder on the out leg, but I was fearful that I'd have a bad run if I had spent my legs on the bike.

Had a bit of a time getting my running shoes on, then dropped my Garmin and had to scramble to pick out from under a bike.

Need to move to next phase - getting out of shoes on the bike before entering transition. This should shave a little time for me. I need to practice this before my next race. Otherwise, had a good transistion and felt good about it.

Felt good off the bike. In fact, was running a 7:15 pace so slowed to 8. I had a good pacer in front of me, but I realized too late that he slowed down to 9 min/mile, so passed him and tried to hold 8 min pace. I got a bit slower as the race wore on, but finished strong. No one challenged me at the line, but I still finished very fast.

I didn't drink much as I tend to get choked drinking & running, but splashed water on my head to cool off. It was very warm. Need to possible carry some small flasks w/water to drink on the run. Need to practice a faster pace.

Walked & stretched.


Wind, waves, wind!


They had water at the turn on the bike. They had lots of water on the run course. Very good race. Didn't stay for awards as they were going to wait for all the runners to come in and I wanted a jump on my 6 hour drive home.