Parvin State Park Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Very disappointing...when I read the time I couldn't believe it. I never, in my wildest imaginings of disaster, would have anticipated I'd be even slower than last year. I need help here, obviously. I didn't have high expectations for the swim regarding time. I wanted it to be a relaxed and focused swim. Relaxed in the sense I'd not hyperventilate over the open water and/or panic, keep my breathing and HR at normal levels, and come out feeling pretty good. I wanted to be focused on the stroke and technique; in the past I've allowed the anxiety and concern and what-all else to totally take me out of everything I've worked on; I didn't want that to happen this time. And I'd hoped, if I could pull that off, it might also result in a slightly faster swim. I grade myself pretty good on relaxation...I didn't panic or get crazy. I probably only earned a C on the focus aspect. My memory tells me that I actually swam for most of this race, although I took more time on breathing than I should have. TSW tells me every time she looked I wasn't swimming. One of us is obviously wrong, probably me; but I'd still maintain that I swam for most of the race. So it was hugely disappointing to see that I'm even slower.

Don't know. I obviously continue to have technique and OWS issues. I've done a decent job overcoming the OWS thing, I think. So improving the technique aspect is something I need to work on.

Pretty decent T1, 93rd overall. I couldn't find a good spot to set up. All my gear was on one side of the rack but I had too pull the bike out from the other side. So the transition involved me running in from the swim to one side of the rack to get the wetsuit off, helmet on, shoes on, etc., then running to the other side of the rack to get the bike.

Get a better transition spot that will allow me to be more efficient. Overall, though, I'm pleased with this and will continue to wear no socks in my sprints. This was a focus area for me and I'm OK with it, given the set-up.

This was the biggest disappointment of the day. My mental approach to this was as a C race, treating it as a solid brick-type workout. In addition to a focused swim, I wanted to kick butt on the bike, this was my primary goal. So, in that respect, it was a failure; I didn't even equal last year's ride, which is really frustrating. Even more frustrating is I don't know what the heck happened! The bike isn't at its best mechanically due to the big ring shifting issues, so I just left it in the big ring the whole time, and I could feel it too, feel the lactate hitting the muscles, which worried me. Being so late out of the water and in the last wave, I didn't get any chance to "pace" off anybody or get pushed, which would've helped. I spent the whole ride catching up, reeling people in; I passed a bunch of people, and went by all of them pretty quickly, so they were moving slower than I was. I expected so much more here, this one was a bummer.

I don't know, which is frustrating. I've been feeling pretty good about the bike, so this result is a disappointment.

The transition set-up was an issue here too. I had to rack the bike and the two on either side of me were so close it took some jimmying around, even moving those bikes, to get mine racked. Then I had to run to the other side and get my shoes on. So this took a little longer than it should've. Average overall.

As in T1, get a better spot.

The only plan I'd had for the run was to hang on and then push it the last half mile with whatever I had left. So, although I'm not surprised this wasn't one of my better runs, I certainly didn't expect it to turn out as one of my worst. My HR averaged 170 for the run, which is right at LT, so that could be part of the problem. I never felt any post-bike type issues, such as dead legs, etc. I did have a funky feeling in my stomach for a while, but that went away after maybe three-quarters of a mile. I walked for maybe 20 seconds through each water stop, and had another two 20-or so second walk breaks to get the HR down. Rain started coming down just before I hit the halfway mark and then just kept coming harder. I don't think that had any real impact; I did the last .7 miles in 6:53, which is under a 10/mm pace. I did the first mile in just over 10 minutes. So it was the middle mile or so where I lost everything. Guess I just paced with some folks that were too slow, I don't know. I only got passed by a couple of people and passed several more than that. Running the whole thing at LT and pushing the last part at under 10, it's hard to find too much at fault, plus I was blown at the end.

Maybe some more, and longer, bricks? I only did one brick prior to this, and that was a week ago.

Walked around to catch my breath, grabbed some Gatorade and picked up a pretzel. It was raining pretty good at this point so we just wanted to get out of there. Moved all of my stuff under the pavilion for packing. This place actually had a changing room with showers, which was pretty awesome. Shower was cold as heck but it was nice to rinse off and put on some clean, dry clothes. We took off and grabbed breakfast at a nearby diner before driving down to Oxford.


Being a lousy swimmer? Not sure what happened on the bike, I know I'm capable of better but it just wasn't there today. The run doesn't bother me much; I'd just planned to hang on anyway, so I pretty much met my goals there. This was a C race for me that I've pretty much trained through and I'll pick it back up again tomorrow...but you still get disappointed when you think you could've done things better.


Another solid effort from the DQ folks. The rain kind of screwed this one up; once it started coming down it came down hard. I've never been around when they started packing up the racks and getting all the race accoutrements put up, and I've stuck around longer than we did here. With the rain, though, they wanted to pack up and get gone and I don't blame them.