Northeast Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Plan was to swim hard and see where that would get me time-wise. This race always is a no wetsuit swim and nothing was different this year with water temps in the low 80's. My swim training has been minimal this season, but generally feel confident in OWS, espcially since doing my first Half-iron distance race in July. There was one guy I who I drafted much of the swim who I must've been driving nuts since I kept touching his feet / legs along the way. Since it was cloudy, sighting was somewhat easier, though I had a harder time picking up the correct buoys on the leg back in. Surprised to see that my time was a slow as it was based on the effort I seemed to have put in.. other folks were commenting that the swim seemed long or that there was a current on the way back in, which could be true to some degree.

Swim more in general, get in more practice OWS's

Long run from swim exit to T1.. passed a few people on way in. Decided to wear socks, so took a little extra time getting them on (though pre-rolling them up worked well). Used my Specialized bike shoes with the Boa closure, which are a little tough to grip with wet hands. Took a couple tries to get my LAS Chrono helmet on correctly -- the strap folded over on my first try.

Getting my Sidi's set up with Look cleats to I can get back to having shoes clicked into pedals already. Get my helmet on my noggin on the first try.

I wasn't sure how if my bike legs would be there since I did the Mike Clark Memorial "Conquer the Hills" 100k ride up in Wilmington the previous day -- which covered just about every big-ass hill in the Greenville / Kennett Square / Chadds Ford area. At the very least none of the hills on the Northeast course seemed as big in comparison :) Anyway, my legs weren't that trashed after all and I started to get into a decent groove after the first 10-15 min. Traded back & forth with 2-3 guys... seemed like I was able to push over the top and get back up to speed pretty well, so that's where I would tend to overtake other riders. Meanwhile, Avg'd a little over 21mph on this course, which was pretty decent given the hills and compared to the other racers .. and a lot better than my time from 2007, the last time I did this race.

Keep training on hilly roads, add a couple of Computrainer workouts going foward. Not trash my legs on an ultra hilly ride the day before.

got out of shoes with plenty of time to spare and got off bike cleanly. Shoes stayed clicked in even though they were hitting the ground some as I ran with the bike. Had my Garmin Forerunner 305 to get on for the run -- forgot to reset from my last bike workout, so had to deal with that while running out. Felt like I got through T2 pretty well.

Make sure that Garmin is reset and set to running, not biking. Probably should just get one of the new Forerunner 110's that I can wear for the whole race and not have one more piece of equipment to deal with in transition. Put my race number on the right side up on the first try.

The run is usually where I pick some spots, but I wasn't sure how many matches I had burned going hard on the bike. NE usually is a sauna, but today's conditions were overcast and still relatively cool. My initial pace was ~7:10/mile according to the Garmin with the mild incline for the first mile or so. Passed one guy in my AG around mile1-2, which was a good thing because that was the spot that got me on the podium (3rd AG). Then found some targets ahead and picked up the pace to ~6:50. Helped to have a running partner who came up from behind -- some fast 47 y/o dude who ended up finished a minute or 2 ahead of me .. he pulled ahead of me on one of the larger hills. Found another running partner to keep up the pace (this time a 55 y/o who's Kona bound).. I must've been dehydrated because at one of the aid stations ~4 miles in my hamstring cramped after stutter-stepping to get a cup of HEED. Had to walk a few steps to work out the cramp and then got almost back up to speed -- Kona guy was a <50 yds up the road and was able to kick it up pretty well for the last mile in ~6:40. Could tell I was on the verge of cramping more, so I took that as the sign I was running at my limit. Got to shake the hands of 'older dudes' #'s 1 and 2 right at the finish. Good comaradery (sp?) on this run course!

Take a gel on the runout from T2.. get more fluids / nutrition on the bike. Need to start adding in more tempo runs or (gasp) track work if I'm going to meet my goal of being sub-40 in an Olympic run. Northeast probably isn't the course to do it given the hills..

Not much or a warm-down. My wife greeted me at the finish line and I downed the water they handed me. I walked around to keep from seizing up too badly.


Didn't taper for this race at all, so overall happy with my performance. My goal is to race another half in September, so this was a very good training weekend between the 100k hilly group ride on Sat. and this OLY race on Sunday.


CGI generally puts on good events - they've gotten so popular I missed NJ State in July and Northeast in 2009 because they sold out. As a cost-cutting measure they've implemented a 'take only 1 item' policy for the post-race food, which wasn't as good or nice as past year's events, fwiw. Lin-Mark handled the timing, which seemed to be a problem because results for the OLY took FOREVER to be posted. Folks were getting antsy / worried that they didn't get the timing right (?) Glad we waited since it turned out I got 3rd AG. Lin-Mark also uses these ridiculously large chip contraptions that feel like you're wearing a prison ankle "lo-jack" / anchor. Looks like they need to work out some bugs in their system.