Hy-Vee Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I did okay in the water. Definately better than last year when I flipped over a bunch to catch my breath. One of my goals for the swim was to not do that at all this year and I was successful in that, but I still thought I would have been faster than this. However, I did a poor job drafting as the time trial start kind of threw me off a little since it was my first one ever. Also, we all decided to not wear our wetsuits but I'm wondering if I should have. I think I would have been able to get it off fast enough not to cancel out any of the time saved in the water. Finally, I do think this was longer than 400 meters in the water. Defiantely at least 450, probably closer to 500 meters but the time does include a decent run back up to transition where the timing mats were located.

More OWS practice.
Wear wetsuit provided I would practice getting it off fast enough.

T1- I went down the wrong aisle to begin with. This was because all the relay teams were bunched in aisles that I was supposed to turn down and so they were blocking my marker on the end of the racks. Even with that, I was doing pretty well time-wise because I had my shoes clipped in and secured with rubber bands so I was gone from the bike rack fairly fast. However, after crossing the timing mat, I jumped on my bike only to bite it. Wet tires on wet pavement is not a good combination. Other than a scraped knee and some hurt pride, I was fine so I quickly got back up and got going.

Not get lost going down the aisle.
Not wipe out when jumping on the bike.

I was a little rattled from my spill so I wasn't as aggresive as I probably should have been. I rode fairly hard but I should have rode harder still, especially since this was only a 20 K. It was pretty crowded since I was the last one in my AG to start in the swim. At times we were riding 3 or 4 wide. I had lost almost all of my Gatorade on the spill so that stunk but fortunately I had a bottle of water. Took a couple of gels on the bike. Not because I really needed them but rather cause I had them taped on when I thought it was going to be an Olympic distance.

Ride harder. It's a race damn it!

I had hoped to break 1:00 flat but it was pretty crowded. Coming in off the bike I was actually passing other athletes with there bikes who weren't going as fast because of the mess. I even actually dinged bikes with another triathlete who was going out for the bike portion when I was coming in so between that and the conditions, it cost me a few seconds. A race with 1500 people is always going to be crowded but even more so when it got compacted the way it did.

Nothing.

Above average run. I really should have gone faster on this too but just didn't push myself when I became uncomfortable. That's what happens when you train for a race that is twice as long as what the race ends up being but what do you do. Splits were roughly 6:42 (I thought a pretty good split coming off the bike), 7:22 (most of which was a gradual climb and then a decent size hill until we turned around a barrel), 6:08 (almost entirely downhill), and then 0:36 to finish up.

Pushed harder throughout.

Got some water and cheered on Swee, Rob, and Jeremy as they finished. About 20 minutes after we all finished, it just poured so we sat under a roof to a building for almost an hour so I guess that served as our warm down.


Confidence in the swim.
Not pushing harder on the bike and the run as I had way too much left in the tank when I was done.


I continue to love this race! Certainly I wish we could have raced the whole thing but half a tri is better than no tri. I hope to continue to be back for this one next year and in the years to come.