East Fork Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

Swim felt pretty good.They had the sprint distance go off in all of their waves first and waited about 10 minutes after their last wave started to get the Olympic waves going. I was in the second Olympic wave, their were probably under 40 people in my wave. I seeded myself in the back left and found myself in pretty open water right away. I was breathing every 4th stroke on the first lap, then switched to every third stroke on the second lap. The switch to bilateral breathing was to help my sighting to try to pick up the buoys while breathing on the left side. This didn't work out too well. I was all over the place on lap two. At one point I swam inside one of the kayaks. The nice lady on the kayak directed me back the right way. Another time I started swimming diagonally across the course to one of the opposite buoys. I would love to see a track of my swim. I got headed in the right direction and then made it to the end. My number one fan noted that I kept stopping every couple of strokes toward the end to sight. I really need to work on that.

Sight better. I probably added some distance zig-zagging my way through the course.

Nothing special here. I went sockless and thought I made it through the transition fine.

I made a major mistake at the mount line here. It was a little tight and I don't always have the easiest time clipping into my pedals, I'm still new at this, so I decided to move to where it was a little more open. Well if you've ever seen the course at East Fork you start up a nice hill and I moved myself on to the beginning of that hill. DUMB!! Clipped the right side in and couldn't get my left foot clipped, I toppled right over at the bike start, at least I was out of the way though. I had to steady myself on the fence to get clipped in. A little embarrassing yes, but again my number 1 fan was there and had a very calming effect on me so all was good. Probably cost me at least a minute or two and a place in the my age group.

After clipping in on got on my way up the hill. Mistake number two on the bike was not having things in the proper gear for the start, big hill and big ring don't play nice together. So as I was getting going on the bike a runner in the in the Du reminded me to use all my gears to get up a hill. When I got out of the park and on to the roads I was into a pretty good rhythm and felt good about the bike. Things were going well for the first 9 miles until we got to the biggest hill on the course.

On this hill I again failed to set myself up properly. I didn't get to the biggest in the back until I was already really cranking. The gear changes were not as smooth as they should have been and things never made it to the top cog. I couldn't keep up the forward momentum and about 150 feet from the top of the hill I fell again. Had to walk up the rest of the way because there was no way I would be able to clip back in on the hill. This thankfully was the last of my bike mistakes for the day.

Coming down that hill was fun. I felt pretty good the whole ride. Just a little silly on my two falls. Since they were pretty much at zero speed nothing was hurt on my person or the bike. Those issue both probably cost me a least a minute or two in both instances. Probably only cost me one spot in the age group, maybe two.

Course was well marked and the sheriffs and volunteers were great out there. I thanked them all. Overall I was happy with my bike, I would like to avoid falls in the future, but for my first Olympic distance race I was content.

First and foremost just clip in at the mount line. It might have been tight, but it was flat. Also I would keep the negative thoughts out of my head with regard to clipping in. Just get on the bike and ride.

Train on more hills. If I do this race again next year, which I probably will, July will focus me on some hills. My main race is the Rev 3 half which is a very flat course, I haven't trained on too many hills.

Had to sit down to get my socks on. I think I'm going to try to start running sockless for Sprint and Olympic distances. Other than that I think things went well.

Sockless

I was disappointed in my run. I am not sure if the hill psyched me out or what. I was hoping to run closer to an 8 minute mile pace. I felt really good off the bike and until I got to the bottom of the hill I was fine, when I got to that hill it just sucked the life out of me. I had to walk half way up it on loop one. Loop two I walked the whole thing. I also walked the aid station on lap two both on the out and back. I should have been able to run the whole course. I'm not really sure if I was just out of gas or what.

Not stop running. After that first time I started walking, it was easier to walk in the future. Just keep running, drop the pace back if you need to, but don't walk.

Grabbed some water and took a seat in a chair. Grabbed a half of a peanut butter sandwich and some cookies.


This was my first Olympic distance so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Obviously my issues clipping in was my biggest problem.


I liked the race. It was only my second Tri overall, my first Olympic. I liked the HFP Racing set-up and will probably race the whole series in 2011. I was really using the race as a training day for the Rev 3 half, but feel that the Olympic distance is one that I will continue to race. In fact I might just do Vermillion in two weeks.