Midwest Meltdown - TriathlonSprint

Water temp was "78" but I left my wetsuit at home and wouldn't have worn it anyway, it's too hot when the water is in the 80's. Was still in the corral waiting to cross the timing mat when they announced 1 minute until start, maybe keep the pre-race briefing a bit shorter. Got into the water and out into the deep end to get on the inside line before teh gun. At the start everybody went in to a dead sprint, it was insane, I couldn't go further inside because there were already a few guys out there pushing me into the main pack, there were some hitting my feet and I was going stroke for stroke with the guy to my right. I figured I'd just go with the pace and it would clear out as people fatigued and started dropping back but that didn't happen until after the first turn bouy. This was definately a swim that favored the fish, they just swam off the front and let the rest of us dopes beat each other up and fall further behind. Got straightened out on the back stretch and went into recovery mode for a few minutes then got back on pace.

Not go into full sprint mode at the start, I'd have been 99% as fast with relaxed smooth strokes rather than the insane sprint effort that the group started with and would not have paid the fatigue price for the rest of the swim (and race).

put bike shoes on in transition because of gravel at T1 exit

244W avg. Good bike leg, matched last years effort. There were 2 fast long course bikes that passed me pretty handily.

Pulled feet from shoes, dismounted on the run and hurdled the ditch. Picked up a sand burr in my fore foot on the way to the rack. Saw someone head out of T2 as I was racking my bike, thought he might be the current leader. Popped the burr out of my foot as I was putting on shoes and socks then took off.

Don't step on sharp objects when barefoot.

Got out of T2 about had a bit of trouble settling into a comfortable pace, the guy out of T2 just ahead of me was clearly running away, didn't know if he was the leader or not but it became apparent I wasn't going to chase him down. At the turnaround saw I was currently in 3rd (1st overall started in the heat 5 minutes back, a very fast old man who schooled us youngsters). Started getting a bad cramp in my right calf toward the end, road camber is a suspect there. Found more sandburr parts in my foot after the race, adrenaline is nice, I didn't feel a thing while I was running.

sat in the lake for a few minutes


bad start to the swim


This is a fun race, real small last year, pretty good turn out this year.

Checked my time from last year when i got home, 1:02:18, same as this year to the second. Good split consistency too:
2009 2010
Swim 13:18 13:25 (wore wetsuit in 2009)
T1 :50 :59 (put on bike shoes in T1 in 2010)
Bike 26:51 26:52
T2 :42 :41
Run 20:39 20:23
calm windy

This has given me some motivation to train smarter for the 2011 season.