Charlottesville International Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I am all around a slow swimmer, but the water was flat and there was no current, so it was a pretty easy swim. The only thing that was bothersome was that the sun was raising right behind the beach area that you swim towards to get out of the water so navigation got a little tough. I swam into a lily pad field, and I hear several other people did as well, when they were approaching the beach. I swam well, even if I was one of the last people out of the water. There were few enough people in the race that despite it being a two lap course, the men who were catching up with the women in their second lap as we rounded our first didn't seem to have to go around us too much.

Well, I put pam on my goggles because I for some reason believed that that would stop the fogging, which it did... but it also means that the goggles were all smudged up, so I don't suggest it.

This was a good transition. You come out of the water up a smallish hill where you get to your bikes, which are wherever you put them because it is first come first serve. Then I ate some banana, drank some water, put on my shoes and ran over to the mounting area.

Eventually I am going to learn flying start and finish, and so I won't have to spend the time putting on my shoes.

This was my strongest event of the day. I had worked a lot on the bike and had worked a lot on hills, so though the hills were tough there was nothing I couldn't handle with a bit of digging deep. There are several long stretches of soft rolling hills that were perfect for areobars. There were several people around me that I would pass and they would pass back because of our different strengths.

My nutrition. My bike is too small to have two water bottle carriers on the inside of the frame, so I only carried a highly concentrated gatorade/heed mix. I need to be able to get some water too. the calories were appreciated, but my mouth needed something refreshing. I would also perhaps not use everything up during the bike ride, I was totally wiped by the run!

I would make sure i get my race belt on before I try to exit the transition area!!

This is normally my strongest event, though I didn't train for it as well as I normally do. I was tired from pushing it on the bike, and I think i may have had too much sugar/gatorade and not enough water (or no water) on the bike ride and the first 2 miles were not fun. Eventually I was able to loosen up, but i never got to a normal race pace. And sadly, i lost my sunglasses!

train better. I live in the area and had never run the course, so i think i would do that in the future, just to become familiar with it.

warm down?


heat, and a scattered training schedule


It is a nice local race. There were about 170 or so racers, with a few elites that made the field seem tougher, but not enough that your average joe and jane can't without some training feel accomplished. The race directors and organizers seemed to have a lot of fun with it, though unfortunately the USAT officials had to disqualify a few people on a technicality. Make sure that even if you are not actually RIDING your bike, but are just straddling it, you still have your helmet on and fastened.