Elephant Man Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Lots of firsts for this one: my first race OWS, first oly distance, first time in my wetsuit. I had a hard time getting into my stride, and I was very panicky during the first 1/3 of the swim or so. I had to stop and tread water for a bit to calm myself down. Once I relaxed into it, though, I felt pretty good. No problems passing or being passed. I definitely preferred it to the pool swims.

Just need some more practice and experience. It would help not to tear my wetsuit right before I get in the water, too.

Run up a hill, strip off wetsuit, finish running up the hill. Put my shoes on with no socks this time. Sunscreen spray, helmet, gloves, sunglasses. I felt pretty good about this transition actually.

The wetsuit stripper volunteers were awesome.

I should have taken more time to adequately apply sunscreen -- it came back to bite me in this race -- I have the streaks to prove it!

Well, it had to happen sometime. Right after the killer climb, about half-way through the course, I noticed a hissing sound from my rear wheel. Sure enough, I had a flat. Two other riders stopped and helped me out with a spare tube (so I didn't have to screw around with my patches) and a CO2 cartridge. I've fixed a flat before, but never in a race situation. I struggled a lot with everything: it was hard to take the wheel off the frame (I even struggled to open the quick release), it was hard to take the tire off, I fumbled with the tube, it was hard to get the bead of the tire back into the rim, no one had ever used a CO2 cartridge before so even that was a struggle. And of course it was a struggle to get my wheel back in place and aligned as well. Thank goodness for the awesome racers who stopped to help me out -- they saved me from completely melting down out there! I was stopped for almost 40 minutes. Incredibly, no race volunteers/officials even passed by until we had just about fixed it. The EMTs stopped and helped get the chaining right at the end, so that was nice. My performance on the 2nd half of the race was definitely slowed -- I'm sure my tube wasn't fully inflated, my spirits were down, and I was riding cautiously.

I'm not sure. I should practice removing my rear wheel and putting it back. I might consider getting sturdier tires and slime tubes to race in, even if it slows me down...

Murphy's Law prevailed here, as well. I had some yankz that my boyfriend had laced on my Wal-Mart shoes the night before. Well, one of them wasn't done correctly, and when I pulled the laces, a little piece of plastic popped off and I couldn't hold it tightly in place. I started messing with it, but then decided to just run with my right shoe a little bit loose.

Don't forget the shoes that I'm used to :)

The first mile felt so long, and so much had gone wrong in this race, I very nearly gave up at the first aid station at the top of the sandy hill. I was hyperventilating and on the verge of crying. I stopped and took lots of water, and just started walking. It took me at least another mile to calm my mind enough to run a little bit. I was able to get to the point where I would run down hills and walk up, and eventually run on the straights. I took a lot of water at the aid stations. The aid station volunteers on the run course were great, and they really helped me keep going. On the last turn down the sandy hill, some of the long course runners encouraged me and they kept my pace up for the last mile.

Other than the shoes, I think I did about as well as I could on this leg of the race. It was very emotionally and psychologically challenging just to keep moving forward. I was just happy to finish.

Walked around, ate a banana and some orange slices, drank a lot of water, took a naproxen (that saved me on the ride home!). Luckily a friend still had a hotel room at the Butte Inn, so I took a long shower before heading home.


Clearly I could have done better on the preparation front. But while I could have done more on the individual level to prepare (a packing list would have helped), I was also provided last-minute accomodations for other people, at the detriment of my own preparation and mental state. The morning before the race, I ran over to a friend's house to see if I could accomodate both her bike and mine in my Civic, along with three people (answer: yes, but the person in the back seat would have been decapitated if there had been an accident), which made me late and flustered getting on the road, and certainly contributed to me forgetting my running shoes. I lent my bike pump to a friend on a relay team the night before the race, so I had a crisis in the morning when she showed up late and didn't have it.

Next time I do a race like this, I shouldn't make any last-minute changes to my travel and preparation plans. It freaks me out and puts me in a stressed mental state, and I think that propogated through my entire race.

That being said, though, I'm glad that I finished the race and didn't quit. Hopefully this will be the nightmare race that I'll look back on and laugh about. I'm looking forward to training and preparing for doing better on all my triathlon races next year.


The race was generally well-run (but I wish they would have had more and/or more convenient packet pickup times/locations -- the 5-7pm packet pickup time was a nightmare because that's when EVERYONE got there). The volunteers were GREAT. I was surprised to see so many motor-powered boats on the swim course -- I didn't see any near-misses with swimmers, but it still seemed a bit dangerous.

I will be eternally grateful to the two racers who stopped to help me on the bike course!