Onion Man Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I h ad gotten into the water the day before and it was COLD. Noticed when I was suiting up, that many folks where wearing booties, as the word had gotten out. Some folks said the water was about 56, I'd say it was colder. I saw one person without a wetsuit (he was crazy)

Used the full wetsuit, 2 caps.
Got in the water about 15 minutes before the race to try to get over the ice cream headaches that I get when the water is this cold by swimming out to the 1st buoy.

No luck, couldn't hold my face in the water. Swam a little more went back to say bye to Sandi, got in the water & the horn went off.

Change in the start this year. No longer is it a mass start, it is now males 1st, then females 3 minutes later.

Thought I was in the back of the pack but got kicked & swam over pretty good between the shore and the 1st bouy, so headed out to the outside where there where less people. Kept trying to get my head in the water but couldn't breathe when I did that, so reverted to breast stoke for the 1st 1/3rd of the race. Finally seemed to get a little comfortable at the end of the 1st loop, and was able to start doing freestyle but after a while I had to come back to breaststroke. On the last third I finally got going with freestyle completely. Strangely enough one of my better swim times at 33:43

More OWS if the water in the NW was warmer

Best T1 ever with my full wetsuit!!! Thanks Jill! Everything came off right for once! A little slow with getting the bicycle jersey on, (I left it zipped up) but over all really happy with it. 3:53

Trisuit instead of a Bicycle jersey

The wind was blowing all day Friday and Saturday. Sunday wasn’t as hard but it was still blowing. Once I got out of the Dam area, I encountered a headwind most the way to the turnaround. Strange as this sounds the wind seemed to stop once we got turned around, but when I got to Walla Walla Vintners the headwind came back with a vengeance, really strong until the community college. Time was 1:20:54 which was slow for me (1:20:29/1:17:12) where my previous times so the headwind must have been going strong.

more bike time. Have done the bike course at 20 mph avg.

Fastest T2 ever. Thanks again coach! I little practice goes a long way! 1:12 a PR at least for something!

Nothing@

Uneventful except had to stop in the porta potty & pee. Don't have the fluids dialed just right yet this year but 58:06 was in the middle for my times here. My other times where 56:27/59:09/57:55/ so seems OK for where I'm at.

Nothing really a little streaching.


Work


Swag was great as always, good water bottle, long sleeve shirt, good BBQ dinner.
I think we liked last years caterer a little better though, & no band. 1st, 2nd, 3rd Age grouper winners got a nice Ridel wine glass!