Festival of Flowers Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

This race was a supported hard training session, the plan being to:

1. Go easy on the swim and focus on form and taking a good line.

2. Treat the bike as an FTP test as much as possible.

3. Do whatever is possible on the run after that bike.

So, given that the course is a little long, and that there is a decent run from the swim exit to T1, I don't feel too bad about the swim. I did focus on good form all the way, and course deviations were minimal. So I'm pleased. Still, every time I do an Olympic I am slapped in the face with the fact that I give up 4-7 minutes on the swim to the guys that bike and run at my level. Ain't gonna do well like that. I'm working on it...

A bit slow. I fumbled too much with the helmet. And the shifting problem on the bike also made it hard to run with the bike.

As I said, this was to be more or less an FTP test. Race situations forced me to do it a little less time-trial like than I would have liked, but overall I'm pleased with the result, and will take the test as valid. The shifting issue affected speed a bit, but not really power -- I was able to keep power pretty steady.

The time is almost a 4 minute improvement over last year, and on much less bike training, so I cannot complain. I'm confident now that I could break an hour in a 40K that didn't have so many turns and where I didn't have to deal with other people on the course, and of course swim 30 minutes before, etc. I need to find a nearby 40K TT and prove it.

That's better. I got cut off going over the mat or it would have been a couple of seconds quicker. Third fastest overall in any case, so fine.

This was never going to be a good run with all of the mileage I've run this week, and going more or less all out on the bike. I couldn't really feel my legs at the beginning, so I just cruised it, not worrying about racing or anything. Eventually some form started coming back, I was able to pick up the pace, and it became just a good hard tempo run. Overall it was fine and I was properly toasted at the end so I doubt I left much time on the course.

I sat in the lovely sprinkler tent for a while, talked briefly with Nick (who, as it turned out, crashed on the bike -- he has had some bad luck with that lately but was at least able to finish the race) and Jason, packed up and came home. Now I'm eating bad food and am going to take a nap.


I like this race a lot. If I ever learn how to swim, I will do it right (taper, sleep, pace, etc.) and see what I can do. Anyway, even treating it as I did, I took nearly 8 minutes off of last year's time, so something is working.