Cape Henlopen Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

We were in the 2nd wave. The wave before us had some huge waves (8+ft) and ppl were getting thrown back to shore. Luckily we didn't have anything crazy. Made it to the first buoy w/o many issues. The parallel swim heading north was rough for me. The swells were kinda making me nauseous when i was putting my head down in the water and trying to breath on 3. Spent most of the time breathing on 2. Just gutted it out and tried to pull as much water as possible. Got crushed by a wave on the way in...oops.

Certainly didn't expect my time to be this good. Either the current was helping a lot, the course was slightly short, or i somehow swam faster (which i doubt).

I guess more ocean swimming practice....but it would be hard to simulate the swells we had.

My run out of the water was a light jog since my heart was racing so much. Ran with bike shoes on instead of having them clipped in.

nothing

Afer all the bike issues I had on Saturday and sunday, i had no issues during the race. Felt so much better after the first handful of gear changes went smoothly.

I knew I needed a great bike for a chance to compete with brad. Started off averaging 17-19 and I was a little concerned, but after making a turn around mile 3, i realized those first cpl miles were all head wind (wasn't sure since it takes me a while before I can start cranking 20+ on the bike). from then on I was 23-24mph when i had the wind, and 19-20 when i didn't. couldn't get my HR down, but this was a sprint so i wasn't too concerned. there was a little bit of standing water on the course, but it was mostly dry. i passed a ton of ppl...surprised me during the race but then i realized after the race that all teh duathletes were in the first wave and a lot were already on the bike by the time i got there.

Had 1 bottle of Amino-Vital and i serving of hammer gel.

go faster if i could, but honestly it was a good bike.

no major issues.

i put my race belt on while standing...should have put my sneakers on, and then put the belt on while running out of T2.

Felt good to start. Did mile 1 in 7:12. Didn't see brad on the 1st turn-around. Saw him on the 2nd...slapped hands told him i had about 1m30s on him. This was a little before the 2mi marker for me (my watch was just before 14min) so i knew I had to keep a solid pace to hold him off. After another 6 or 7 min i started to look back. Saw brad less than 100yds away w/ less than 1/4 mi to go. I started to pick up my pace. When I saw the finish line (maybe about 0.1mi out) I started kicking hard and didn't look back. heard a cpl ppl call my number since I was pushing it. Crossed the line and turned around to see brad a cpl steps behind. held him off by a mere 7seconds.

besides more run & brick training prior to the race, I felt I had a good run and ran my race.

a little bit of stretching and then cheered Kristin, Ron and Mario at the finish.


Short of more training, I felt like I ran a good race. At my first tri in may i finished 23/38 in my AG. Today I was 5/25. i can not ask for any more improvement than that.


I think Piranha puts on a pretty good show. They still have a think with making the bike in/out the same place. It's not fair to a all participants, but this is minor. The transition area was clsoing while they had the award ceremony and series raffle...kinda annoying.