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 Swim
Comments: As we were watching the earlier swimmers do their two laps I learned and saw a LOT of things. Here they are in no particular order: 1. I seeded myself way too slow. I saw backstrokers, breaststrokers, lollygaggers, and wild zigzaggers. It was awesome to watch. It kind of reminded me of the background from the roadrunner cartoons...sort of a continuous repeat of wacky swimming awesomeness. 2. The end of the first loop was so shallow everyone had to get up and run part of it. As time went on, lots of people gave up and walked the entire back half of it. I thought this looked tiring so I decided to try to swim most of it and practice dolphin diving the mid shallow part. Worked good. 3. There was a platform in the middle and when I swam by on my second loop, I saw a dude scaling it sideways like spiderman. Like I said, it was awesome. wore socks in the swim so running thru transition wasn't so bad as it would have been in bare feet. I think flip flops would have been too hard... What would you do differently?: I have no idea of swim pacing. I go out fast, gas myself and don't catch up until the bike. I seriously need to have a plan for the OLY coming up. I don't do this in practice, even when I am trying to swim fast...something about a race I guess.  Transition 1
Comments: I am thinking the time I gained with the wetsuit was wiped out in my awesomely slow T1. I knew this would probably be the case, but part of the reason I did this tri was to practice everything for my oly. The bumpy road was hard to run in but I did my best. Also I broke my sunglasses and had to slap them back together...it was fun looking out of one lens and above one lens during the entire bike. Really this whole thing was a train wreck. What would you do differently?: Seed myself higher in the swim as the higher swimmers got the better transition spots.  Bike
Comments: Hammered. Only got passed maybe once. In the drops most of the time. With aerobars, an aero helmet, and perhaps a TT bike I could definitely gain some speed here. I am happy with my time given the constraints of my museum piece, but I could be faster I think. My bike was wobbly today, need to figure out what's going on with that... ETA: Just looked at the results and apparently this course was so easy that a LOT Of people got penalties. Wow. What would you do differently?: Need to be crystal clear on my drafting zone. I am still not a great judge of relative motion on the bike and sometimes I got too close to someone before I was ready to pass them. I always completed the pass, but once I was uncomfortable, and I didn't like that. Need to be more sure of that zone. I understand it in theory, but I don't have the actual sight picture in my head yet. Transition 2
Comments: Lost my gu off of my number belt. SO BUMMED about this. I really liked that little packet. F'ed around with my glasses some more, they were still broke d*ck. In retrospect I should have just thrown them in the bushes. What would you do differently?: Not lose my number belt pouch.  Run
Comments: Really should have done this closer to a 7:30 mile. It is within my reach. Mental toughness fail. What would you do differently?: Have a watch. I am pretty good at looking at my splits and then adjusting, mostly cadence, to keep my pace up. I think could have done this run a bit faster with a bit more management. WITH A WATCH! I am certain I negative split it though as I felt much faster later in the run, when I remembered why I was there. Post race
Warm down: Hung out for a while with my new buddies. Triathletes are fun. Ate a bit, but not much appetite until later. What limited your ability to perform faster: Bike gear, mental lapse on run. Lots of lessons learned which was the point of the race. It was only my second tri ever... And looking back on my transitions, I was way too slow. If I had knocked off some time in both transitions, I would have gained at least one, maybe more places overall. Event comments: I liked the race a lot. The volunteers were a lot of fun...you could tell they worked hard to make it a "better" race. The venue was amazing, especially the run. WOW! Official results are not up yet, but I'll edit the report to reflect the info when it comes out... Last updated: 2009-12-30 12:00 AM
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United States
70F / 21C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 121/539
Age Group = F40-44
Age Group Rank = 6/24
Up before the alarm as usual. Except it was 2:45. Ouch. Really felt tired b/c didn't get to bed before 11...had some friends over...one night in town, we really needed to spend time with them (tough year for them), etc. So it was what it was. I tried to have things pretty well ready to go so I wouldn't forget anything. PB on toast, fruit for the road, but I felt really full from the late pizza dinner the night before so I didn't eat anything else. Coffee.
Got on the road just before 3:30 with an hour drive. Felt ready and in control. For about 5 minutes then decompensated thinking I had forgotten my sunglasses. Off the freeway to check bag. Got 'em. Back in control and on the road. Completely befuddled by new traffic patterns on the way out to the west 'burbs.
Freak out after about 20 miles realizing I don't HAVE MY FUCKING WATCH. Music blaring in the background is Bee Gee's "Tragedy, when you lose control and you have no soul it's a tragedy..." Laugh and get over it. Probably could have used it on the run. More on that later. LESSON LEARNED.
Spend time making friends and influencing people in the longest porta pottie line EVER. Seriously, who orders 4 portapotties for 600 people, who all have to go right before their race. SERIOUSLY?!? Hem and haw over the wetsuit. Decide to wear it. Spend even more time in the line for the time trial pool start. Make more friends.