TriHawks Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Started a little wide right, trying to get a straight shot to the turn buoy. That worked nicely, there were some swimmers farther to my right, but I got out ahead of them quickly and didn't have to battle anyone until I caught the waves in front of me.

Nothing

I don't practice my transitions and it shows. Had trouble getting my wetsuit off of my heels and racked my bike at the far end from the bike out (mostly due to laziness because I found out after I had all my stuff set that the bike out was at the other end, and I didn't want to move it.)

Practice transitions.

The bike course was sketchy due to the rain and number of hills and curves. I am not the most confident going downhill at high speed as it is, so add wet conditions and I'm that much more nervous. I took the downhills pretty conservatively. I came up on one bad crash at about mile 10. I saw two to three riders down with several more tending to them. I slowed way down and made sure that help had been called for. I didn't know whether to stop or not, but ultimately made the decision to ride on because it looked like all of the injured were being cared for, there were folks directing traffic, and help had been called. I slowed down for the police car and ambulance as they passed on their way to the accident. The sight of the crash made me that much more cautious for the remainder of the ride. Heading into the park toward the finish line, there is one section where you curve downhill before heading over the dam. I pumped my breaks before heading downhill to slow me down a bit, as I knew braking into a curve going downhill was a bad idea. As I picked up speed, though, I felt uncomfortable and pumped the brakes once more and was immediately reminded why it was a bad idea when I started to fishtail. I eye-balled the ditch for as soft a landing as I could find because I thought I was going down for sure, but I let off the brakes and got it under control, thankfully. I would later hear that one of the riders who crashed jabbed the back end of his aerobar into his thigh bad enought that it pierced his thigh and had to get stiched up. OUCH!!!

Not much. I played it conservative because I didn't want to crash on a wet day, and that's alright with me.

One of my better T2s considering I had another long run to my rack. I opted for no socks on the run because they were wet from the rain anyway and I figured it would be a big time struggle to get them on. I figured for only a 5K, I would survive.

Felt a little sluggish at the start, that may be due to the hills. My pace seemed a bit off, but again I wasn't expecting as many hills. I should have kicked earlier. The finish line came up a lot quicker than I expected and I had some gas left in the tank.

Read the course description more closely or maybe scout the run course ahead of time.

Walked around and ate the free food as usual.


Weather and lack of knowledge of the course.


I signed up for this race at the last minute just because I wanted to do one more race this season. Even though the conditions weren't the best, I'm glad I did it. It's good to experience all different types of courses and conditions. I bet the course is a lot more fun in better weather. It was cool to ride over the dam with all the hawks flying over head looking for fish.