Stumpy Creek International Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Ahhhhhh. WTF happened here? Had slowest swim of my life. Never felt comfortable the entire race. I don't know what it was. Didn't panic, just couldn't swim for shit. I am not a good swimmer but this was just a f*^king disaster. 7 minutes slower than same distance in May. Got out of the water, looked at my watch, and took a giant mental blow.

hell if I know. Swim faster? Did learn post race that the swim was 2-3 minutes long (two of the top open guys are regular 19:xx swimmers on a legit 1500m both did around 22:xx).

Good transition for the most part. I had ideal racking spot (one rack behind the open folks) since I got one of the $5 entries before spots even went on sale.

I would have run a bit faster if I wasn't so mad at my swim time.

Other than being extremelly frustrated from the swim, the bike went well until the last 3-4 miles. Pacing was pretty good. Right around 3-4 miles to go, my left knee really started hurting. The over-compensating for my sprained ankle caught up with my knee. Was uncomfortable on the last few climbs. Still had my fastest avg speed in a race which is at least an improvement. The knee pain worried me since I was gonna have to run with a sprained ankle and sore knee.

HTFU and push harder on the bike from the get go. Leave the bad swim at the lake.

Forgot to get out of my shoes before dismount (loooong downhill to the dismount line). Whoops. I knew this wasn't going to a fast transition because I had to put on my ankle brace. Oh yeah, I had to piss like a race horse! Got my crap together and took a nice long pee before leaving T2.

I guess with the cooler weather I didn't sweat out as much as I normally do because I really didn't drink that much, and definately not more than normal. In 3 years of racing, I have never had to go to the bathroom in the middle of a race.

Knee/ankle had me worried so I took it relatively easy the first lap. The steep hill at mile 2/5 was a bigtime pace buster but managed fine. First lap done and while my ankle was a little sore, it wasn't shooting pain like earlier in the week. Deceided to pick up the pace for the 2nd lap. Lot of folks slowing down on the second loop. On the final half mile, I picked some guy pretty far ahead of me and set a goal to beat him to the finish. Dropped a gear started going at 6:30 pace with half mile to go. Caught him with about 100ft to go. Second lap was a :30 neg split.

Not hurt my ankle 3 days before a race.

Not much. Was here by myself so I just grabbed some food and drink, cooled down a little and hit the road so I could ice my knee/ankle.


Terrible swim had me mentally down the moment I hit T1. That had some effect on the rest of the day. Ankle issue was known beforehand and knew the run might suffer. Why did the swim go so bad? Who knows. The only thing I can think of is that was a "B" race for me (I got a $5 entry) but I still planned on racing and doing well.


Had issues with the long check in time. Shouldn't take 20+ minutes for 600 people. Only course complaint was the water bottle handoff was on a stretch of road I was doing 30mph on! Move that to a slight incline, not at the bottom of a hill.

One complaint, not really against anyone in particular but there was so serious drafting going on, especially by some groups of 40-44 AG. I'm talking 5 in a line 6" from each other's wheel. None of those guys got caught. Come on people.

Competition at this event was the best top to bottom that I have seen. This was a double points event for the Setup Events NC series and a lot of big guns from all over the state were here.

As they say, you have good days and you have bad days. This wasn't a good day.