Pinchot Olympic - TriathlonOlympic

I made a huge mistake on the swim. I often take allergy medicine to help deal with feeling run down. I was out of what I usually take so my wife gave me something else. She said, "it's the same thing." Well, it was not. The stuff had a lot of ephedrine in it so my heart rate was pounding. I've never experienced anything like this in the water. With ephedrine in my system, the excitement of the start and the cold water I took off at the same pace as the rest of the pack. Before I got to the first buoy my heart was pounding and I was needing to breath every stroke. I realized what was going on so I purposely tried to force myself to settle down by going back to some of my basic slow and efficient strokes which I worked on when I just started learning freestyle. It took a bit but that worked. The 2nd half of the swim was much better than the 1st quarter. I was feeling good and with a wetsuit, I was feeling a little faster. My goggles fogged up so sighting was a bear and to make things worse, when I rounded the last marker the sun was rising behind where we were headed. I was blind as a bat so I kept my head down and just worked on getting somewhere fast.

Spend more time practicing OWS. More specifically, sighting, dealing with fogging goggles and learning to stay within my own game plan.
Get used to the cold water, even if I had to spend 30 min in the water first.
Avoid anything and everything new the day of a tri. (the allergy medicine was bad news)

I didn't even attempt anything fast in transition. I just wanted to make sure I did everything right the first time.

Lots of room for improvement here. I will work transitions into my training routine.

I didn't have my bike shoes clipped in. I put them on and walked the bike to the exit. Slow but I didn't fall so I'm ok with that for now. Like the swim, my heart was still racing and I feel like I pushed harder than I had trained. I'm anxious to see my time on the bike. I noticed that weight is a killer on the hills. I powered up the two hills but each time, I saw the lighter folks zip by me. My goal is to lose 23 more pounds so I think I'll be able to do much better when I get there. I feel like I did well in the long flat stretch. There were a few people who passed me going up the hills and I was able to catch them on the downhills and straights.


Lose weight! I will do this next year at about 20lbs lighter. I think that will help. More importantly, I only have a little over 2 months in the saddle so with a trainer and more time next year, I expect this to improve a lot. I enjoyed the biking the most though.

I came into transition and again, I wasn't worried about time too much. I heard a couple ladies behind me say they needed to eat something for energy so I tossed them a couple of Cliff Bars. I grabbed one for myself, slipped on my running shoes and staggered out of the transition. I took the bar with no paper because the rules said that no gels or food was allowed outside of transition due to litter. I figured I was fine since I left the paper in my bag. I had bigger issues. I tried to eat that thing and simply couldn't swallow it. I realized that I required water to get it down so I tossed the bar into the woods and spit it out. Another lesson learned... that's why you guys use gels I guess.


I don't think it would be difficult to come out of my shoes on the bike and do this transition in less than half the time. I will practice this. It's sad to see 5 min added to your time just from being slow in transitions.

The run started off very slow and shaky. My legs had never been pushed that hard on the bike so they were feeling the effects. I'm not a good runner anyway so I started talking to myself inside my head. "stick to the game plan... you need to worry about finishing strong. Relax and enjoy this, etc." It took me about a mile but I finally started relaxing and getting my legs under me a little better. I made it through the run by just keeping my typical pace. It's slow but I'm guessing it was around 10 min/mile and under the circumstances, I have to say that I'm proud to have trained well enough to at least make it through without ever needing to stop. I'm blown away that I could actually do it.


Push myself! I finished the run realizing I could probably do another lap. I honestly felt better during the 2nd lap than I did during the first. Mentally, I had prepared for the worst but unfortunately, I paced myself for the worst as well. I need to find a way to pace myself better / faster. I had done nothing for speed during training. That will be important over the winter an into 2010.

Just walked things off. My legs didn't hurt at all. I was very surprised.


This was my first tri and I was nervous about being too overconfident. Also, I prepared for the distances but not for racing. I should have started training much earlier in 2009 and used a training plan which included more speed work.


I don't know what to compare it to but people were very friendly and supportive. I had a lot of fun and definitely plan on going back in 2010. I swear I will beat the 3hr mark next time.