Snake BiteTriathlon - TriathlonSprint

Swim not as sucky as the time indicates, includes over a minute run from lake to transition area.

Bit of a strange swim, could never get into a rhythm. Would swim 30 strokes freestyle, pop up into a couple breast strokes, then repeat. Bit of a chop, which I'm not used to, so I got a couple swallows of lake water. Seemed to go fast to me, maybe because it was the shortest OW swim I've done, but the buoys seemed to fly by even at my pokey pace.

At 100 yards left to go, people stopped swimming and started walking, waist-deep water. I swam a little more, then said screw it and started running where it was knee deep.

Train more, especially at swimming in the chop and running in knee-deep water.

Second fastest T1 in the race, 4/10ths of a second behind Clay.

Uneventful, even routine. Goggles and cap on the towel, helmet on, grab the bike and go.

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Nice bike ride.

Kept feet on top shoes until I was out the park and up to speed, got them in quickly, and I was off. Immediately was passed by one of the Lake Charles Triathletes, but he didn't get far. Only person to pass me the whole ride. For a while I followed, about six, eight lengths behind to get a little draft effect, but he eventually pulled away even further. Passed people constantly, until about four miles in when I was pretty much alone.

Breeze was blowing in, provided a bit of resistance. Prevalent speed was in the 22-22.5 range, with the starts and turns I averaged right at 21.5 at the turnaround. At the turnaround, I somehow caught and passed the LC guy, then the prevalent speed became 24-25mph. After about four miles of this, I must have began to lose focus, daydreaming, and my speed sagged to the lower part of that range when the LC guy came by me again. From that point, it was game on, got my speed up to 26-28mph and we leap- frogged a couple times. He finished just a hair ahead of me, turns out we had identical bike splits.Sixth and seventh fastest bike splits in the race.

Roughly 18 minutes out (21.5mph)and 16 minutes (24.3mph)to get back in.

Stop the wind as I was going out? Sure was nice coming in, though!

Can't ask for more, as this old fat guy just can't move any faster. Racked the bike easily, no problems getting into the running shoes despite the wet grass transition area, grabbed hat and race belt and was gone.

Sixth fastes T2 time in the race. Second place O/A winner had a crazy 13 seconds, LC guy had 16. Beat Clay, thoough, by six seconds. ;)

Combined T1-Bike-T2 time was 5th overall.

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Didn't mention that the weather for this race was superb, we had a cool front pass through Friday and Saturday that dropped temps down into the upper 60s on raceday morning, but more importantly brough in some much drier air. Makes a huge difference for me, as my run splits were 45 seconds per mile faster than the same distance last week.

Took about a half mile to moderate my pace, to find a point that wasn't too hard or easy and stick with it the most of the way. Got an ice cold towel at the half-mile point to cool off. Found to the turnaround in good shape, but saw that a local friend/rival wasn't 15 seconds behind me. He's in the age group above mine, but I figured if they had a Grand Masters award it would be between him and me, so I didn't want him to catch me. But, he's out-run me in every race since I took June off with my Achilles problem. So I ran the second with a little bit of fear as motivation, pretty much at the brealing point but expecting him to blow by me at any second. ;) To my relief he never did, in fact no one passed me in the last half mile. There was a younger guy that finished right behind me who congratulatied me on holding him off as well.



Nothing, This was the best run I've had in a while. Love the cooler drier weather, hurry fall!

Didn't puke, so got a couple Gatorades and watched the rest of the race with my sisters and their families. After everyone was in, went to the main pavillion to eat jambalaya and hot dogs and wait for awards.

There was no Grand Master, though I would have won if there was. Only guys over 50 in front of me were the third-place overall and the Masters winners. Had to settle for first in my AG.


Crappy swim. As my run improves, this is once again going to be a glaring weakness, something I'll have to continue to work on.


Very nice inaugural effort. RD Lisa spent a year or more planning this race, did a lot of homework, solicited and welcomed a lot of input from existing RDs, and it showed with a great race. Love being able to come back to my hometown and race for the first time in front of friends and families. Hope this continues and becomes an annual event.