Elephant Man Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Holy sh*t, that sucked! Never done OWS before, since I don't have anywhere to practice it. Started off OK, got about 200m in, then my goggles fogged up and I couldn't see anything. Managed to get that sorted out, but then I was pretty much alone in the water (way, way back of the pack). Every time I took 10 strokes, I'd look up to sight and find that I was at least 45 degrees off course, if not more. At this point, I was truly uncomfortable, and not having any fun. So, I pretty much did 30 strokes breast/10 strokes free for the whole rest of the race. I figured if I could just get out of the water, I'd be OK.

OWS practice, but I don't know how.

Long transition area, since they started timing T1 as soon as you came out of the water, and it was about a 100m uphill run just to get into the actual transition area. There was only about 50m of pavement after the mount line before the course started up a big hill, so I elected to put my shoes on in T1 rather than leave them on the bike (there's no way I would have gotten both of my feet in and secure before starting up the hill). Unfortunately, when I went to mount the bike and clip in, I just could not get my right shoe to clip. It took me so long that I lost all of my forward momentum, and had to frantically unclip my left shoe to keep from falling down. Finally got going after way too long for something as simple as clipping in.

Be fit enough that I could run 100m uphill at a good pace after finishing a 50 minute swim, and not forget how to ride a bike.

The course was mostly rollers for the first several miles. Right around mile 10, they had what was called "Crash Corner." It was sort of like the initial drop off of a roller coaster, followed immediately by a 90 degree turn to the right. There was one of those yellow signs that told cars to slow down to 30 or 35 to take the corner. I took it at 32. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it was followed by 5 miles of pretty much non-stop climbing. Some lady was tacking back and forth across the lane on one of the hills, and almost took me out as I was passing. Then a guy flatted right in front of me. I stopped to see if he had all the kit he needed to change his tube, and he didn't have anything! And, unfortunately for him, he wasn't racing on 700C wheels, either, so I didn't have anything to give him. The last 10 miles of the course seemed to be the reward for putting up with the first 16. It was 95% flat or downhill, and I had a good time.

Nothing. Just train some more so that I can be faster going uphill.

None really. I didn't wobble at all when I jumped off of the bike and started running. I didn't forget where my rack spot was, so I got there quickly and started changing.

I put on compression socks in T2. That took a long time. I think for my next Oly or longer race, I'll just buy some compression calf sleeves and wear them the whole race. Would be a huge time saver.

I wanted to run faster, but I didn't want to hurt myself. I felt a tweak in my left hamstring on the bike, and it was still there on the run, so I took it easy on myself.

Nothing.

Walked around the lake with my daughter, feeding fish.


Overall fitness (first race of this distance). For the swim, never comfortable enough to just swim. Not sure if that will ever get better, because it's not something I'll be able to train on.


My first Oly, but I thought this race was put together extremely well. Considering that Elephant Butte, NM, is in the middle of nowhere, the amount of volunteer support, food, drinks, etc. that the Race Director was able to provide was astounding.