2010 Mountain Lakes Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

1 2 3 GO! Cut my foot open on a rock. Last year they had rugs down at the beginning and end of the swim because Guntersville lake has a lot of rocks in the shallows. Apparently not this year. I wasn't sure how bad it was at the moment and I didn't stop to check but it didn't bother me too bad on the rest of the swim.

I tried a new thing this time. Dolphin dives where you dive and glide, jump up dive and glide again until you get into deeper waters and then again at the exit of the swim. I think this really worked to my advantage.

Decent swim. I forgot to put my ear plugs in. First time that's ever happened. Guntersville Lake was really dirty and I swam through quite a lot of seaweed. I got kicked in the ribs. People were veering around at weird angles. I physically moved a person out of my way one time. It was incredibly packed out.

Much faster than last year but not really a fair comparison due to the weird marking of the course.

If I had raced AG: 14/45

Nothing, the swim went well.

Since I left my ear plugs in my back pocket, I was trying to fish them out so I could leave them with my stuff. I lost one to Guntersville Lake, and I lost some time trying to find it. I should have just left them alone.

Very similar time to last year.

AG rank: 4
Overall rank: 107
If I had raced AG: 21/45

Not get hung up on one little thing. Transition was a bit slow.

It was a pretty uneventful ride. It was a great day to be out there. Overcast and therefore unseasonable cool (cool is an overstatement). The foot didn't bother me on the bike. I enjoyed the ride and even though I wasn't as prepared as I hoped to be, still put in a good effort. I took a GU toward the end of the ride.

Last years time was 50:01 so that's pretty crappy.

If I had raced AG: 24/45

Eh, obviously this was pretty much a direct result of my issues this season leading to not enough miles on the bike.

Time lumped in with run. They didn't do this last year so maybe the mat was broken. Did the flying leap off the bike. All went smoothly except for some unknown reason I took my sunglasses off and then had to go back and get them. I've never done that before so that was pretty weird.

Practice.

Pretty good run. Foot bothered me a bit, but didn't slow me down. I just took it at a pace I could handle. I saw a girl with an A (for athena) on her leg at one point and though "No way," but it's on the honor system at all the local races so oh well. I thought I did really well for what I had to work with this season. According to my watch, the run was about 28.5 min. Not shabby. Powered out a nice sprint finish complete with loud grunting. :)

Last year's time was 26:27 so again yuck for that.

If I had raced AG: 21/45

Eh, obviously this was pretty much a direct result of my issues this season leading to not enough miles on the road.

Stretching, huffing and puffing - I'm always incredibly winded after that sprint finish. Ate some food, talked to my folks. Got a good look at my foot which had a nice deep gash in it. Took one turn down the slide into the pool. :D


Like I mentioned before, this season was riddled with bad stuff - first the foot injury then 2 sinus infection, not to mention a close friend of mine going through a very difficult situation, my sister-in-law being so sick, and my own surgery only 2 days after the race. All this led to very low motivation even when I was able to train. So I'm just hoping that this stuff clears up and next year I'll be able to focus a little better. An interesting note - at every other race I've done, I'm always thinking stuff like - "half way done with the swim" "swim is over now just 2 more events" "only 3 miles left in the bike" "done with biking now just running left" "only 1 mile left in the run" ect. Always counting down the seconds until I'm done. But this time I didn't want the race to end. It felt really good to be able to focus on something other than all the crap going on in my life. It was a really good break for me.


I was pretty disappointed not to podium this race, but I know I didn't deserve it. I missed out on some sweet swag though.