Lake Tanglewood Tri to Make a Difference - TriathlonSprint

We were in the 3rd wave, so my goal was to catch some of the pink hats ahead. Started in the front of the wave in the middle. Made a straight line to the first buoy, drafted off some wetsuits to the 2nd buoy. Somehow I got turned around on the turn home and was sighting of the wrong buoy. Probably cost me 30 seconds or so.

Navigate with the shoreline rather than the buoy.

Exiting the water was tricky. The landing was covered in slick moss. I didn't realize they had a matt down on the left side. Guess that's why everyone was exiting on the left. I tried to skip traffic and went on the right. After a few seconds of slipping a volunteer finally helped me out.

My bike was literally two steps from the mount line so I had a quick exit.

Follow the crowd.

In looking at the results from the previous years I knew it was either a very tough course or very meager cyclists doing the course. The first mile and a half was decent rollers, but then you make the turn onto Bo Hill.

During the prerace meeting the RD said if you were "going to dismount and walk (and most of you will), do it on the left side of the road so you don't lose balance and fall of the cliff." Boy howdy was he correct. I got there and saw a long line of people walking their bikes up a hill that I couldn't see the top off.

Shifted into the small ring, smallest cog, stood up, and climbed for all I had in me. I averaged right around 10 mph on the half mile climb. Probably passed 50 people on the hill that were walking. I actaully got passed here by a local kid on a road bike. Must be nice to have a triple.

After the hill it was rollers and headwind for 3 miles. Managed to catch a few more people including the kid that had passed me on Bo Hill.

Last two miles were on a scary fast downhill with a tail wind. Didn't even pedal down the steepest one (actually braked a bit) and hit over 42 mph. Sweet.

Attack more before the hill.

T2 kind of caught me by surprise. I had planned to get out of my shoes and dismount but with the downhill finish I decided it would be safer to play it easy.

Came in way too fast to the mount line, slammed on my brakes, slid in the water left from the overnight rain shower, and screeched to a halt just before the line. Got a lot of looks for that maneuver.

Get my feet out of my shoes before the big downhill, slow down earlier coming into T2

Tough run course. I felt pretty miserable the first mile but I had a couple of guys up ahead about a 1/4 mile that I thought might be in my AG. Each hill I would make up a little bit of ground, inching closer and closer. Finally caught them both at the turn. Neither were in my AG. Oh well.

2nd half the hills started to wear on me. Really wanted to take a break but my mind wouldn't let my legs quit. A dude had a water sprinkler going that I ran through the at the end of mile 2. That helped. Caught two more people in the hills and pretty much ran to the finish line by myself.

More hill training

After getting my finishers medal I grabbed a couple of bottles of water, found my flip flops, and stretched on the dam while cheering the remaining finishers on. After that it was a few free adult beverages, a cheeseburger, and a dog.

During the awards they gave out pins to every first timer in the race who got up Bo Hill without walking. There were 8. Then they gave out pins to returning athletes that did it. About 20. So only 1/6 people made it up without walking. That's a tough hill brother.


The hills and wind.


If you want an easy course with a flat bike and run, this isn't the one for you. But if you want a challenge that you will be talking about to your friends for weeks, this is the sprint for you. It was well worth the 12 hour round trip to get there.