Jackson County Triathlon - TriathlonShort Course

In my last tri I was 1st out of 19 AG in the swim so I figured I could start in front. My sighting was terrible. Sun was shining and of course, I'm visually challenged without my glasses (one day I'll get back to contacts or wear goggles with some visual correction in them). Anyhow I swam past the 2nd turn bouy and heard the volunteer say "swimmer...swimmer". So I turned left knowing that's probably what she was eluding to. Sure enough I had gone about 10 yards past the bouy. Being so far right I just put my head down and swam solid, slowly edging closer to the swim line.

2009: 9:03
2010: 8:48

Wear corrective lenses of some kind. If I keep improving my swim times, I'll be leading a swim wave eventually and might not have a group of faster swimmers to follow.

I picked a great spot in transition. The 2nd rack next to the bike exit/return. That way I wouldn't have to run in my road bike shoes very far AND it was easy to find my spot. Took me a few seconds to snap the helmet buckle and slip the shoes on but other than that it was a pretty good T1 for me. Picked up 1:10 over last year.

2009: 2:40
2010: 1:30

Maybe change helmet or helmet strap. Oh yeah, practice putting on shoes quickly.

My plan was to go out hard on the bike and deal with the run with whatever energy I had left. In my last race I don't think I took a drink at all during the bike leg and that's probably why my run was so slow. I asked the pro Chris Legh the day before about hydration during a sprint distance. I told him I'm a little "clumsy" on the bike and didn't hydrate at all in my last race since the bike portion was less than 12 miles. He told me something to the effect of ....it would be "stupid" not to hydrate at some point during the ride since you've got to run 5K right afte that. He mentioned that if I waited until T2 to hydrate that would be too late if I wanted max. performance out of the run. Given I tanked in my last run (8:05 mile pace even though it was very humid) I thought to myself "ah ha". So....about 10 minutes into the bike leg, I'm on a slight downgrade so I grab my water bottle, take a couple good swigs and attempt to put it back in the carrier.....oops, now it's bouncing its way off the road behind me. That's the "clumsy" part I was talking about. BTW Chris also stated he'd watch out for me on the course when I made that "clumsy" statement. Needless to say that was my last bit of hydration during the bike leg, NO WAY I was stopping to retrieve the only water bottle I had. Shortly after the bottle drop I traded places with another guy also on a road bike. Eventually I passed him one last time before the last good descent and just put my head down and put my legs in motion. I came off the saddle to get some good speed going, then charged forward.

BUT, given the not so optimum hydration levels, I still had a good bike leg, over 20.4 mph in pretty warm humid weather. Temp was approx. 78 deg F but RH was around 86% when my bike leg started. I don't remember the exact conditions last year but it was at least 15 degrees coller and the humidity was much much lower. Not bad for a 44 year old 195 pounder on a $800 road bike.

2009: 37:41 (18.7 mph)
2010: 34:36 (20.4 mph)

Put a seconds bottle on my bike in case I get clumsy and drop one!

My transition spot was 5 yards from the bike return so no excuses for nearly a 2 minute T2. But, since I failed to hydrate properly on the bike, I walked over about 12 feet to my gear bag that was sitting on the edge of the transition area and grabbed my 1/2 bottle of gatorade as I departed.

It also took me a while to get shoes off/on. Just not relaxed, trying to rush things too much.

2009: 1:33
2010: 1:55

Don't rush things so much. Take care of hydration during bike so as to not worry about it in transition.

Came out of T2 holding my gatorade bottle for the first mile or so. Took a few drinks to hydrate hoping that the run would feel better coming back in. The whole run was tough. Mental games were being played in my head..."maybe I should stop and catch my breath". No way, I knew I would have a good AG placement. I passed a few people on the run (8-10 maybe) and I only recall one maybe two guys passing me during the bike leg. No way I was giving something away on the run after a good swim and probably my best bike leg ever.

Run split was a tad better than last year, given the added temperature and humidity I felt this was a good run, especially after going all out on the bike.

2009: 22:14
2010: 22:06

More intervals. Need to run at threshold more to improve 5K run distance. Too many longer tempo type runs the last few months. Be better hydrated....

Walked around, drank water, ate a banana, drank more water, ate some grapes, drank a Pepsi, then drank a Mihelop Ultra. Stretched a little.


Ummm, perhaps some more quality training (intervals on both run and bike). Swim stroke still needs work. Sleep is still a challenge, averaging 5-6 hours a night during the week, maybe 8 on the weekends.


This was a good race for me. Over 4 minutes faster on the same course from last year. It's hard to be apples to apples here since the temperature and humidity were much higher this year than last.

I heard some discussion about course confusion on the Oly course and the impact on the chip-timing results. My time was off by 5 minutes but I think that was the wave interval. My original wave was #9 but on race day they switched the 40-44 AG to wave #8. I think that's where the 5 minute discrepenacy came from. Looks like most of the times have been corrected in the results posted on line.

It was cool to have the Q&A with Chris Legh on Saturday.