Black Fly Tri - TriathlonOlympic

The water was 53 degrees so they shortened the swim from one loops to 2. The swim was less than desirable anyway so that was fine with me. The water was freezing, murky and shallow. I swam over multiple sections where it was obvious people had stood up to run. The sun was in our eyes on the second straight away which made sighting the bouys difficult. However, overall I felt strong in the water. I did make myself bilateral breathe which helped get my breath count down (it was almost every stroke at Mooseman). It was a time trial start with a swimmer leaving every 5 seconds. I immediately caught the 4 guys that started ahead of me and continued to pick people off the entire swim. Considering I had no warmup and the difficult conditions, I'm happy with this swim

Continue to focus on breathing during OWS - still breathing too often which slows me down.

Had more problems getting my wetsuit top off - I need to figure out a better way to do this as I'm obviously not doing it right. Skipped the wetsuit strippers and got the pants off ok. Had to do a couple more yanks than I would have liked but it's getting better. Glasses on, helmet on, socks/shoes on and I was off.

Will do a flying mount next time, stopped and clipped one foot in at the mount line...will do my best to figure something else out because there's no need to stop. Really should work on keeping shoes on the bike.

There were only a couple hills that I would consider actual climbs but there was a constant slight grade in the road on the way home so it was demoralizing to be pushing so hard and only going 15-16 mph. My bike computer went on the fritz so I had no idea how I was doing overall - just my current speed. I also forgot to start my watch so I had no reference at all to my overall time.

I went out hard - my goal for this race was to attack from the beginning and see how long I could maintain that pace. I stayed out ahead of the handful of kids near me on the racks that had awesome bike setups and looked really fast for about 4 miles. It was mostly downhill on the way out so I was pushing hard and flying (probably averaged in the high 20's on the way out). I was caught and passed by a handful of people but most of the passing was being done by me which I was really pleased with. On the way back, I felt slowwwww. The constant uphill grade was really taxing but I was still catching and passing people so I knew I wasn't alone out there. My goal was to run down Adrienne - which in reality would never happen as she had a ~12 minute lead on me and she's quick on the bike - but that was my mindset and what I pushed for all the way on the bike.

Nothing - I was really happy with this bike split. Not much more I could have done besides continue working on my training. I feel like I've come a long way in 6 months to be able to be top 25% & 20mph+ on the bike having never ridden before February.

As I was approaching the dismount, I ate a gel which made my hands/mouth sticky. I unstrapped my shoes at the right distance from the line this time but didn't take my shoes off, just slipped my heels out (keeping my toes in the shoes). As I came to the line, I slipped one foot out, swung it over and hopped off the bike. Good transition once I was at the rack.

Take my feet out and ride with them on top for the last 100-200 yards. Run faster through transition.

Again, my mentality going into this race was go hard as long as possible. I've really noticed recently that my performance is greatly impacted by my mental attitude going into the workout. At mooseman I had a solid bike and suffered on the run but was thinking the whole time, you aren't a strong runner so don't worry about it...just suffer through - and that's what i did. This time I wanted to go in thinking more positively and try to race instead of just suffer.

I went out at a sustainable pace and about a mile into the run linked up with a woman who was running at my pace. She sat on my shoulder until right before the turn. I sat on her shoulder through the water stop and for about 3/4 of a mile after the turn. I had checked my watch at the turn and saw 16:30, which I was pumped about because my legs felt good. I picked it up on the way back, attacking the few hills that we had to climb. I also worked on running through the water stops instead of taking a break and walking.

I hit the final straight away with just over a mile to go and the lady came up and ran about 10 yards ahead of me. I tried to close and had some problems doing that so I just tried to maintain the gap. We came back into the village and I had enough to sprint home.

I need to become more mentally tough on the run. Straight aways do me in - for some reason I am much faster/run much better when there are lots of twists and turns in a course. This is a recent discovery and I'm working on getting better but it came to fruition again during the final push home today, which was the only frustrating thing about an otherwise awesome run for me.

Adrienne and I went and sat in the rapids below the pond's damn to "ice" our legs. Then we stood in the water off the beach for a little while. Walked around and got food and then waited for the awards ceremony!


Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better race. There's always room for improvement though and I need to continue to plug away at my running (especially on long flat straight aways).


Overall - great race. There were definitely personal touches from Mooseman that were absent and missed. We didn't have our name on our race number, there was no finishers metal, there was no podium at the awards ceremony. However, overall I loved this race. Also loved the fact that you could race all 3 days with a reasonable amount of training because the load wasn't crazy (4 mile TT Friday, short Oly Saturday, Sprint Sunday). Will probably do Lord of the Flies next year. Also great self-contained location for a race!