Ashland Lions Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I tried working on drafting a few times, but it never seemed to last too long and when focused on staying on the person's toes, I felt distracted from my swimming otherwise. I felt like I got in a good rhythm a few times, but it was still somewhat intermittent. My time was quicker than my goal time, but it also left me wondering if the course was actually a full mile.

Get in a good warm-up, continue to work on drafting, try to settle into a rhythm earlier and stick with it.

This was the longest, craziest transition I've experienced with the rather long, uphill run through the woods negotiating around slippery wet rocks and tree roots. But it was actually kinda fun and I was definitely happy to have heard about it, so I brought my keen sandals to run in which worked out well.
No problem with the suit, etc.

Nothing.

Had lots of fun racing the P2 for the first time, especially on the downhills! Tried to give a pretty hard effort much of the time, but probably could have pushed a bit harder. Definitely need to do better with my hill climbing - I always get passed! But at least I consistently passed those people again on the downhill. There were so few people around on the bike course that that might have contributed to not pushing the pace enough. Also, judging by HR, could have probably pushed a bit more. Still working on race pace...
Took in ~ 20 oz of Clif electrolyte and 12 oz of water, probably 6 honey stinger chews.

Need to work on hill training, and push harder, even if there aren't people ahead to try to catch.

As mentioned, didn't have a chance to practice the route in, and this caused me to have difficulty finding my rack spot, passing it and needing to go back a bit. Dumb.

Obviously, practice route as intended. Also, I'd like to learn to take my feet out of shoes on the bike prior to next race.

First time that it actually felt a bit tough to get my running legs going, probably took about 1/2- 3/4 of a mile, but it didn't help that the run started nearly right away with an uphill. Since I haven't done much length in training runs, I was a bit leary and holding back a bit. Again, there were very few people on the course around me, and most of them were men. I did see a woman ahead of me, caught her and decided to use her as a pacer for about 1.5m w/ plan to then accelerate past her with about a mile+ to go which I did do. In retrospect, had I just passed her initially, I probably could have saved myself some time as I was able to finish pretty strong since I had been holding back and even do a sprint to the finish. Pleased with the time given all the factors, including hills, but definitely plan on picking up the pace for future races.

Push harder. More hill training. Train longer distances and more tempo efforts to feel more confident in race pacing.

Jog, then walk.


Hills. Lack of athletes around me made me a little lazy I think. Not pushing myself hard enough. Usually I use people ahead of me as "rabbits" - need to get a little more internal motivation I guess.


Organizers were just starting to set up transition area 1.5 hrs prior to race start time - didn't finish until about 1 hr before. Not initially body marking at earlier registration time, then later had to wait in long line. No labeling of bike in/out vs run in/out and one race organizer with FIRM (Not a Lions volunteer) actually said to me when I asked "I don't know, but they'll tell you when you go through in transition, but maybe you want to know ahead of time, huh?" YEAH! Come on. That's pretty basic. She was the 2nd person I had asked, the first just said, "I think..." but couldn't give me a clear answer... finally a 3rd could tell me definitively.
I fortunately knew from BT people about the interesting T1 situation and recommendation for shoes for T1 - but a lot of people did not and either did not have shoes, or were returning to transition area to try to grab a pair of shoes after taking the initial walk down to the beach, and then having to rush to get back down to the swim start. Apparently the trail was slippery enough with the rain that I heard a spectator broke her arm? Anyhow, point being is that I think that FIRM should have mentioned this in their course description so athletes could be adequately prepared.
I wish there were mile markers on the run. The only one I saw was at 5 miles. But, I wouldn't think it would be that hard to put signage up at each mile.... and it would be nice to know.