waterfront at puuloa - TriathlonSprint

The race director announced that the swim was changed from last year. Instead of a triangle course, out and back just past the break, we would swim parrallel to the beach. When I initially looked at the new course my first thought was, "This is way longer than 750 meters!"
I had done ZERO swimming in the last 3 weeks and before that not much more at all this entire year. So I knew this was gonna be a sucky swim, boy was I right. I started off ok, but somehow I got caught behind a guy who was frogg kicking. Everytime I tried to get around him it seemed like the surf pushed me back into his path. I couldn't find any feet to draft off and my navigation skills seemed to have left me for good. I was all over the place. And that was just to the first turn. After getting beat to hell on the bouy I headed out for clear water, but my crappy luck was holding. Would you believe I got stuck behing TWO people breast stroking side by side? I couldn't get around them, so out of frustration I swam over the top of one. I was never so glad to see the swim exit in my life.

Maybe actually train swimming.

I have no idea how it happened, but my racebelt got broken between when I placed it in my helmet at setup and when I tried to put it on. I didn't realize it was broken at first, so I was confused when I clipped it around my waist and it fell to the ground. I tried again, same result. I looked at the clip and saw one of the tongs busted off, so I tied it around my waist. Must have cost me a good 20-25 seconds. Everything else went smooth.

Not use a busted racebelt.

Not much drama on the bike. I was pretty happy considering that I hadn't been training much on the bike either, I beat last years time by a couple of minutes so all is well. I did lose about 20-30 seconds when the cops stopped me to let traffic thru at the light but no biggie.

Train more.

Pretty smooth transition.

Nothing

After such a crappy swim, I was counting on making up alot of time on the run. I started picking people off steadily from the start. Since I was so far back on the swim, I always had someone to aim for. What is a little strange is I ran the exact same time as last year, down to the second.

Nothing, the run felt good.

Lack of training. This is the most undertrained I have felt in a very long time.


For the most part, this is a good race. I'm not happy about the swim course change and the delayed start again. But I'll probably do it again next year.