Delavan Lake Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I'm really disappointed in myself for this swim. However, I know what I need to do to fix it. I have been swimming an unbelievable amount this year and I really thought I would do well in the swim but two things hindered my performance.

First, this was only the 4th time I have ever been in a wetsuit. I just bought my own a couple of weeks ago. I feel like when my heart rate gets up it is hard to breath in the wetsuit so I wind up slowing down and breastsroking for a minute. Second, I still haven't overcome the mental game in the swim. I can swim 2 miles of laps and have done so at my club in the last month. But that is a world different from standing on a shore with a bunch of people and looking at buoys that are a 1/2 mile out in the water. This is strange for me because I feel like I can normally elevate on the bike and run on race day.

First, since I now have my own wetsuit, I need to get to Lake Michigan and swim swim swim in the thing to get more comfortable. Second, once I have enough miles in the wetsuit I think it will convince me that I can do these swims without freaking out. Frankly, I freaked out a lot worse at Lake Geneva last year so I think I'm making progress. I'm being a total wimp on the swim deal.

I went with my philosophy of last year to not make too big a deal about the transitions. I need to dump that philosophy and make them at least a little competitive. I was really slow compared to the field.

Try harder.

I really have no idea how I did here which is REALLY frustrating. People went anywhere from 14 to 42 miles because the directions were so screwed up. Clearly my rankings look better than reality here but I do think they would have been pretty good if we were able to see the real rankings. I was having some difficulty on the portions that were into the wind. My speed dropped into the 17 mph area. I'm not sure if this was ok given the wind or if the wind was beating me up. This is where I was passed a couple of times so I think I may have slowed down too much in the headwind section.

I made an idiotic mistake by not resetting my bike computer so I'm not sure how far I really went. I am guesstimating 15 miles from what was on my bike computer but I actually don't believe I averaged under 20 miles/hour. Maybe I did, I don't know, that's the problem.

The good news is I felt great on the bike. I probably passed about 30 to 40 people and I was only passed by 2 or 3. I think I went out a little hard as I was flying by people in the beginning. On the other hand all the Olympics started the swim at the same time and with my poor swim I had a good opportunity to reel people in.

The other good news was my nutrition. I was working on a Triple Threat power bar and sipping my Power Bar Endurance drink every 15 minutes. My stomach felt fine and I didn't even need a gel on the run.

Too bad, I think I did well on the bike but who knows?

Not do a Lake Geneva Extreme Sport event.

Again slow relative to the field. Everyone was so pissed off in the transition area that it was hard to stay focused and frankly to care enough. You had just come to the realization that this was a throw away race because they screwed up the bike directions so badly.

Try Harder.

I thought this run was ok but not great. I feel like my running should be faster at this stage of the game but I haven't totally figured out how to account for the fact that I'm starting a 10k here after working out hard for 1 hour and 25 minutes. Obviously, I am not going to do my normal 10k time during a tri. After more races I will have a better feel but I am hoping I can get my 10k tri time down to 45 minutes. Could be asking a lot since I should have been able to do better here since I didn't go 25 miles on the bike. This is better than the 54 minutes I did at Lake Geneva last September but this course was a huge amount easier than that run course.

Not too much. I started hurting in the 4th lap but I hung in there and made sure I kept running the whole way and I actually felt pretty strong in the last lap.

Drank water and gatorade. Ate a cinnamon raisin bagel. I thought about going for a short jog and I probably should have but I didn't really feel like it so I just stretched.


The above comments on my swim and the dis-organization of the race. I think it hurt everyone's performance knowing it was a throw away race given all the blunders especially with the bike directions.


I avoided doing this race as much as I could because I knew this race director's reputation but unfortunately this was the only one that really fit into my schedule. I understand that it is my responsibility as a racer to know the course but I had to drive up the morning of the race and couldn't drive the course prior to the race. It would have been difficult to memorize every turn from the map. I think the numbers speak for themselves 53 out of 83 racers thrown into the non-standard bike course category. I am sure some of those in the 30 that were official did not do the official course.

The race director obviously does not have a whole lot of respect for the efforts athletes go through to prepare themselves for these events. I could go on but I think my opinion is clear.