New Jersey State Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

No idea what happened here, and it's very discouraging. Three years ago I had a panic attack at the start of this race and dog paddled the whole thing faster than this. Today I feel like I swam for at least half the leg, maybe a little more. And yet...for the first time ever I had to hang onto a kayak to catch my breath, and I somehow had an even slower swim than the dog-paddling fiasco of three years ago. Makes me question whether I even ought to spend time working on the swim. I'm consistently doing 500m in the pool at 15 minutes or a little under...so where'd the other six minutes go?

Had some anxious moments, particularly when the wave after caught up. Right before the turn and right after I kept getting tangled up with other swimmers, even when I flipped onto my back for rest. Even doing the crawl, every time I turned to breathe I was taking in water. And I never felt completely comfortable knowing I couldn't touch bottom and that I didn't have the safety factor of a wetsuit. That all probably contributed to the slower time. Saw three guys give up and jump into a raft to be taken out. I should've started at the right and angled toward the turn instead of jumping right on the buoy line.

A very difficult swim, and disappointing because this was the part I thought would be more or less "normal".



I don't know...stick with 400m wetsuit-eligible swims?

Long run to transition, including up a hill. I was at the rear, so that meant a long run with the bike to exit transition. I didn't really get crazy trying to nail this transition, went through the motions deliberately.

OK overall, just a long transition area and being tired.

Slow bike ride for me. Because I was approaching this as a C-level race - basically a reasonable effort workout - my time wasn't that good. Training plan called for 15-20 minutes in z4-5, so I planned to kick it up a notch once we hit Quakerbridge Road around two miles in through to around 9.5 or so.

Felt like a pretty good ride, only got passed once or twice and those were at the end as I'd backed off on speed; picked off quite a few during the ride. Rode near and over 20mph for the 20 or so hard effort minutes. Would like better speed (because I seem to be getting slower), but given the plan I'm OK, particularly since I finished better than about 60% of the field, which shocked me.

Not too much in this case. I stuck with the plan for the ride.

Rode the last few hundred yards with feet on top of shoes. Think I was the only one doing this in the bikes around me. Mostly walked back into transition, with an easy jog a time or two. Wanted to get some breath and HR back (didn't really work).

Not too much.

Yikes, what a run! My plan here was to go out easy, forcing myself to be slow, and then go at 95-100% for 20 minutes or so. Promised myself to keep that pace even if it meant slow miles. This was mainly out of respect for the heat; by the time I got to the run it was probably close onto 90 and already felt like it was high 90s...hot as Hades out there, which sapped the energy big time...lots of walking to keep HR under control, and I wasn't the only one by a long shot Also had some mild nausea going for most of the run and that weird hip issue again. I stuck with the plan more or less, just hadn't planned on it being this slow. At least had enough in the tank to pick it up the last quarter mile.

Given the conditions I don't know that I could've changed much. I knew the run was going to be bad, and it was. I didn't have high expectations here...but certainly didn't expect 39 minutes!

Grabbed a bottle of water and went to TSW; she said she was very proud of me. She's the one who pointed me to the cooling tent. I'd never seen one of these but holy cow is that a wonderful invention. Kind of felt like I was walking through a car wash; not sure how it works, basically a bunch of hoses set up to spray a heavy mist on you. Absolutely wonderful. I left and then went back in again!. Got a cold rag and stood in front of a fan at the medical tent. Then ate an entire mini pizza and a pretzel at the buffet, and drank a whole real Coke!


A C race for me, taking the place of a brick workout at the end of a scaled back week, so I approached this mainly as a workout with specific workout goals. As such, I had very scaled back expectations, particularly given the extreme heat conditions. Still didn't expect to be this slow, though; obviously I still have open water issues of some sort. Beyond that, the run absolutely sucked. Part of that was the conditions, as everyone else was suffering too. I'm wondering if I still went too hard on the bike, although I didn't feel like it at the time. At the end, I again finished where I normally do, at the front of the back of the pack (last 25%). If you consider that as my crowd, I was the top Clyde and the third guy in my age group.


CGI does an amazing event and this was no exception. Very organized, a ton of volunteers, they controlled traffic on the course very well, lots of people in the water to look out for you. Given the number of participants (twice what it was three years ago when I last did this race), it's pretty amazing they got off as close to on time as they did. Unfortunately, by the time they got to me (16th of 17 waves), they were 10 minutes late; I went off at 8:55; the elites had already finished. That aspect is probably what will make me reluctant to do this again. It's fun to do a big one now and then, but no so much when you're in the water with all those people.