The AVIA Austin Triathlon - Olympic Course - TriathlonOlympic

First 10 minutes of the swim sucked. I definitely was uncomfortable being in the pack. I started in the front on the left side. The contact wasn't what really bothered me, it was the close quarters during the swim. I don't like swimming shoulder to shoulder with people. Their splashing and rhythm mess me up. During the first 10 minutes I switched to breast stroke several times and backstroke once to regain my composure. At about 10 minutes I found a large rock int he water and I actually rested on it for a few seconds. That let me regain my bearings and restart.

From that point on the swim went fine. I really hit a groove for the second half, but I was disappointed about how I started.

Exiting the water I was a little disappointed with my time of 33 minutes (the exact same as last year's olympic), but in hind sight with the bad start and the lack of a wetsuit, I have definitely increased my swim speed.

Next time I start at the back of the wave. I do not want to be in the middle of the group.

Long run into and out of T1. Also, with the drought, the entire area was dirt, causing me to loose time to wipe off my feet before putting on the shoes.

I need to work on moving from the swim exit tot he transition area faster. I usually need to walk to catch my breath and I am loosing time when I do that.

Past experience suggested I would take 1:45 on the bike, so I was very happy to cut 10 minutes off that. I do wish I could go faster (tired of being passed so much), but that is only going to come with time.

I did drink some Hammer Perpeteum on the ride.

Work on getting faster.

T2 was better than T1. I really had to pee so I lost a little bit of time there, but I think it helped me on the run.

Happy with my results here.

I felt like I was going really slow on the run, but my overall time wasn't really that bad. I was disappointed that I ended up walking a little bit (2 minutes total) on the last mile. Before that I ran the entire time.

My stomach did feel a little gassy during the run, not sure why.

Still kicking myself for walking, but still happy about the overall results.

The race itself was well run and everything went smoothly. It is ironic that i was a little disappointed at the end of the race even though I beat almost every benchmark I had set for myself. I think it was just that I felt tired by the end (a result of pushing hard which is a good thing). We will see how I feel in a day or two.