Disco Triathlon - X-50 Distance - TriathlonOther

I like swimming in open water, but I do not like choppy, wavy water. Maybe it was due to the boats in the lake that created ocean-like tides? Whatever the reason, it was crazy.

First 1/3 was rough, felt like I was being pummeled by the waves and chop, but once I rounded the first buoy, I got into a rhythm and did ok. Not sure why so slow, though.

Embrace the chop?

Very long beach run to transition - 90-120 sec before entering transition, then the X-50 racks were on the opposite side of transition, so had to run over there too.

Nothing, since I can't help the placement of the transition area.

This is where it really fell apart. My aero bottle started coming loose about 4 miles in, so I had to stop and mess with it. Good for another mile, stop and mess with again. Repeat 2x. Finally, the bracket broke and I had to leave it by the side of the road. So I lost 6 whole minutes to something that I ended up trashing... AND I then had no water.

First loop avg'd 17.5, which felt comfortably hard. After that, it started getting hot and between being out of water, needing to pee, and a massive cramp in my right calf, I wasn't all that speedy.

My garmin, which auto stops, clocked me at 16.5 pace, which is an acceptable pace for me right now, so I'm not going to beat myself up too much, although I should have pushed it a bit harder.

Oh let's see:

1. Leave the piece of crap aero bottle at home
2. Bring extra water
3. Not get a cramp
4. Push it

No excuses on this one. I was just slow. And thirsty. Very thirsty.

Move like I'm being timed, not like I'm putting on my shoes for a jog around the block!

Garmin clocked this as faster... not sure if the transition time got screwed up.

This was a total sufferfest. First, I had somehow developed massive chafing under my arms during the bike portion and every time I moved I was in crazy bad pain. I actually wondered if anyone had ever DNF'd due to chafing. I ran some/walked some. Tried to run the whole shaded parts and the downhills and walk when I couldn't run any longer. Ironically, I negative split this and felt like I could have kept going despite how amazingly hot it was.

Not sure. I think dehydration from the bike really bit me in the butt here. I couldn't get enough water.

Hands down, the heat. And the lost time due to the bike bottle. And the long transition times.


I really liked the bike course, except for the rough surface in some places. The portion of the run in the park was really nice (except for the horseflies dive bombing everyone - who knew?) but the part on the main road was completely unshaded and rather hellacious.

Overall though, this was a good course and one I'll definitely do again. Every race teaches me ways I can improve, and I think I'm really still feeling out how hard I should go on the bike to save my legs for the run. I haven't gotten that one down yet. Since the run would have sucked regardless of my bike split, I should have hit the bike harder. As it was, my legs really weren't tired during the run - it was everything else that limited my speed.