Old Point Tidewater Triathlon - TriathlonOther

Course was very poorly maintained. I went out with the second wave. Shortly after the first wave went out, the first turn buoy was moved about 100 yards. I started good, but had trouble sighting the turn buoy, by the time I realized it, I was well left of where I needed to be.

After the first turn, was heading directly into the current, made for a very LONG swim to the next turn buoy. I drafted off of a few people, and actually felt I had a nice stroke working most of the time.... It just took forever.

When I was finally ready to make the second turn, the buoy floated past me, and I had to swim another 10-15 feet to get around it. Determined to get around it the second time, it started to go over the top of me and I got caught on/dragged by the anchor line.

Final swim in was uneventful, although the current pushed me a bit wide of the pier and I had to backtrack back in.

By the way, the fasted swim of the day was just over 20 minutes, so for a 1000m swim, the course was definately long, and or the current was very strong.

I need more OWS experience, although this was really the first time I was comfortable swimming in open water. I needed to sight more frequently, and make more adjustments to account for the currents.

After marathon swim, I kind of took my time catching my breath while putting my shoes and socks on. I keep my transitions very simple, so I probably only added a few seconds to my T1 time.

I'm planning on investing in new bike shoes later this season. Once I do that, I'm going to work on keeping my shoes clipped in to the bike.

Actually, I'm pretty happy with my bike times. I anticipated a 1:10 finish time, and I was about 3 minutes ahead of that pace, partly due to the course being shortened.

Also, the course was much rougher than I remember from last year. I saw three downed riders, one of which crashed just ahead of me.

Improved fitness is definately required. Lower body weight will also help. I didn't attach my aero bars for this race, which would have helped me stay lower into the head wind.

I've made so many tweaks to my bike fit that I need to take it in to be fitted again.

I probably pushed it a bit too hard on the bike. Legs were nearly spent and my HR was too high coming off the bike (160).

Forgot to take my garmin watch from bike frame to wrist for run.

I'll be picking up new running shoes this week. I'm way over time to replace. Now that this race is over, I'm going to begin my transition to sockless running.

Legs were spent coming off the bike. My wight remains too high, and obviously, my fitness isn't quite yet ready for an Oly.

I had to take several walk breaks, but tried to limint them to no more than 10 seconds per break.

With about a mile to go, I passed someone from my age group. Decided to dig in and limit any remaining walk breaks to no more than a couple of seconds. Determined not to finish DFL for age group this year.

Need more Brick workouts, need more experience running in the heat, and continue building my speed back up.

Stretch/water/water-mellon.

The watermellon was a VERY NICE treat at the end. Tried to eat a slice of pizza, but just couldn't get it down.


Current fitness (weight).


Swim issues were the big negative for this race. Course markers were constantly moving. We should have swam the course in reverse - ie with the current.

Happy with my bike and transition times. I ran out of juice on the run, but that is a testament to my overall fitness level.

Despite taking 25 minutes longer to complete than I anticiped for my "perfect day", 24 minutes of that came from the swim. Given that everyone had issues with the swim course, I'm pleased.

My primary goal for this race was to over-come my DFL age group finish last year. I did that, and as such, am pleased with my result.