TriHawks Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I waited around for about 15 min. because I was in wave 7. I seeded myself to the outside in the front row. I know this adds distance but I find that my time is usually better when I avoid the washing machine start. I pretty much had clear water to swim in until around 200 yards in, where I started catching the slower swimmers from the previous wave. I took one pretty good breast stroke kick to the side around that time. I just kept my head down and kept moving, rounded the turn around bouy pretty well, and headed back to shore. The rest of the swim was mostly uneventful. I was just cruising along, pulling pretty hard. Made it about 25 yards from shore and ran the rest of the way in.

Not much, this was a pretty good effort for me. I was surprised at the time, I thought it would be faster...

I think this T1 was so slow mainly because the transition area was long and skinny, so it was probably a good 40-45 seconds to run from the timing mat to my rack. I did fumble around with my Garmin, helmet, and sunglasses a bit so that definitely added some time. I normally have to remove the timing chip to get my wetsuit off, and I had issues getting the strap off on this one. Not too bad though. Wetsuit came off pretty easily at least...

Stay calm and not fumble the helmet and sunglasses. Get the timing chip off more easily.

Coming into the park in the morning, I noted there was a large hill to climb immediately out of transition. I considered setting up on my small ring, but decided I could power up it in my big ring. Oops! Not a good decision, I managed to mash up it, but it wasn't much fun. After that it was a series of steep-ish climbs and decents. Then things got interesting, as at the bottom of one of the decents was a gravel pit where the road washed out from flooding. Even going slow, I was pretty close to wiping out, I'm willing to bet at least one person went down here. Continued riding and came to a second gravel pit, same story here. Then we continued on country roads, fairly hilly until the turnaround. Nothing too exciting to say here, except my legs were feeling the effect of being on my feet the previous day. Given the difficulty of the course, this wasn't going to be a PR for me today. Headed back to the park and got the benefit of hitting some of those 40 mph downhills which is always fun. Back through the gravel traps and mashed up the hills and coasted down to the transition area. Pretty solid bike but nothing to write home about.

Stay off my feet a little more the day before.

Pretty solid T2 for me, time was again impacted by the length of the transition area. Nothing special to say here...

Nothing really.

The run started on paved roads and sidewalks in the park. Up a fairly large hill in the 1st half mile, then mostly flat for the next mile or so. A short out and back to a cul-de-sac was next, followed by the off-road portion of the run. This was pretty fun, the trail was not in great shape for running on, lots or ruts and tree roots to avoid. First was a steep downhill followed by a steep and long climb back to the road which was pretty tough. I caught a few people wlaking it near the top. Then it was all paved roads and mainly downhills to the finish line. I caught a few more people and sprinted the last few hundred yards to make it in under 7 min/mile pace.

Nothing really. Train harder, get faster.

Walked around and drank some water. Had a bagel and banana. Watched people finish. Hung around and collected my AG hardware. Cheered the guy that walked most of the bike course due to a flat and still finished, talk about hanging in there and persevering!


Lack of rest the day before, genetics, bad diet.


Thanks to the volunteers, you guys were great as always! Another fun race to do, I would defintiely recommend it!