Fort Ritchie Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Pretty funny race where my highest ranking overall and in AG is the swim.

Debated a bit on the wetsuit, water felt warm, I think it was 78, but need all the help I can get so I wore it and didn't end up having any overheating issues so it worked out.

Really focused on making sure I was in the front row at the start which was pretty easy here. Went out pretty hard to get what little separation I could for a short amount of time. One of the easiest OWS swims I have had to date, very little bumping whatsoever.

Never had to deal with vegetation in the water before, a few times it felt like I swam into a fishing net. Just kept on going.

This was a 2 lap course, get out of water, run down the beach and jump off the dock, so I think if it was a straight 1500 would have been faster here than at Columbia.

Going into the 2nd lap they said you couldn't dive off the dock, so when running up I asked the volunteers if I could do a cannonball, they said to go for it, so pulled off a pretty sweet cannonball off the end of the dock, I tried to find them after to see if it was good enough to splash them but never found them.

Seemed to be pulling to the left a bit for some reason, not sure why, usually swim pretty straight.


Very happy with this swim, probably only thing to do differently is to move a bit faster along the beach, would have been easy under 2:00/100

Suit was a bit slow to come off, was trying to be careful not to cramp up my calf which has happened the last 2 times I wore the wetsuit when pulling it off.

First race trying leaving the shoes on the bike, BIG FAIL! I had practiced this and seemed pretty easy, but proved a bit more difficult with the HR up and wet feet. Couldn't get my right foot in the shoe.

Yes I was the DB weaving all over the place out of T1.. I admit it.

Had to get off the bike to put my shoes on, cost me time, actually cost me bike time vs T1 time but still time nonetheless.

Figure out the shoes on the bike thing.

By far the hardest bike course I have done to date, harder than Rev3, Columbia & Mooseman.

Started off with the whole shoe thing, then had to go right up hill, which kind of blew out my start off in Wattage Z1-Z2 for the first 5 minutes or so. After the first smaller hill, then a short flat section to a very steep, out of the seat climb. Bombed down hill for a bit, some rollers then got to a section of about 3 miles that was about 30-40mph the whole way.

Then we turned off and rode through the valley, passed people here and there, decent length false flat where I kept looking at my PT and it was showing 14mph and 230 watts.

Just before getting out on the main road I shifted to the small ring up front to go up a short hill and chain popped off.... GRRRR, more time wasted.

Once we popped back out on the main road there was a short downhill then back up the hill, for 4+ miles, hanging out around 250 watts for the whole thing going 10mph.

Few short fast descents up to 40mph but they were all followed by sharp turns so not a long time to hold that speed.

Not mess with shoes, not drop a chain.

This was a tough course to pace myself, I could have gone much harder up the hills but wanted to save my legs for the run. Still a work in progress.

Pretty fast T2, my transitions overall were pretty good, since I didn't finish higher than 33rd overall in any discipline but came in 30th overall on time.

Nothing

Legs felt good I thought, tried to ease into it a bit, but again tough to get my HR down. Looking at the times of the people in front of me, this is where I should have been able to keep it closer, they were all in the 7's which I can run, but not sure why it doesn't come out in Tri's.

Looking back at my lap times not sure where some of those laps went, I felt like I was running in the 7's but turns out it was in the 8's.



Running off the bike is something I really need to work on. Frustrating some times that I can do stand alone runs so much faster.

Saw Karla and waited for Sam to finish.

Karla ended up 3rd OA female and Sam was 2nd in her AG, another great race for them.




Me.


Another good race for Ken, Very challenging track, will be back next year to go faster.

Course was well marked for both the bike and run, plenty of volunteers, for a course with lots of turns I was never close to missing any turns.