9th Annual Boilerman Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Ok I think I had a strong swim, I freestyled the whole way. Where I sucked was sighting. Ended up on opposite shore once. Spend most time zig-zagging back and forth. Found self actually swimming greater than 90 degrees off-course more than once. I swear I swam about 2000m total.

Sight sight sight sight and also practice more open water swimming. I really worked hard on swimming though (in the pool), i could hardly do 150m freestyle in the Tri-Noodle so I'm proud I did the whole 1500m(+) freestyle today. Consider wetsuit.

I ran all the way up that big hill after the swim! My primary goal was to get my heart rate stabilized prior to the bike. It was so cold so I dried off a bit.

Hustle, I guess. Oh and blow my nose. I had sniffles the whole darn bike ride.

Not bad, honestly. I improved my sprint time by a lot. I was pretty pleased with my bike time, thought it was about the extent of my effort.

Get a better bike. :) Practice the course correctly. Also I adjusted my seat at the last minute which didn't benefit me on the bike but hurt me a lot on the run. See run note for details.

Again, getting heart rate down prior to run. Finally blew half the lake out of my nose (gross I know) which made me feel better.

Hustle I guess. I changed shirts since I had to get my other shirt on which had my number. A racing belt probably would have helped here.

Ok I put too much for drinking since I had cramps in calves, so I slowed to get gatorade at 3 stations. The problem was 1) I already had to pee really bad and 2) the gatorade was SO watered down I think I got like 2 electrolytes per cup, it was like water with a sprinkle of gatorade powder. May have actually exacerabated calves.

Sooo as I mentioned I switched up my seat (reclined back one click, down about 1/2") before I raced. I did this b/c my shoulders had terrible pain so I thought if I wasn't pushing myself backwards so much this would help. Didn't help my shoulder, still had horrible pain, but my hips, glutes, and hamstrings were toast when I tried to run. It was all I could do to keep one foot in front of the other. I didn't walk, but as you can see my running pace was slower than molasses. So lesson learned = no last minute changes. Also probably more time trial practicing.

Road back to vehicle. Chatted with friends. Felt sorry for myself for my DFL performance.


1. Better pre-race nutrition
2. Learn how to sight/open water practice
3. No last minute changes to bike
4. Need better bike. :)


I put 5 on mental effort because I realized I was in DFL and seriously considered bailing on at least 8 different occasions. Glad I didn't - kept reminding myself that my first Olympic (and only 2nd tri ever) should have a goal of finishing, nothing else.. Sorry for everyone who waited around for me to finish. I would totally do it again, besides, I have a score to settle ;)