Pumpkinman Triathlon - Olympic Course - TriathlonOlympic

Swim went better than expected. Water temp was wonderful, with no gasp reflex in sight. I started slowly, and kept wide of the first buoy to minimize impact. I kept my pace very moderate, and found a nice pair of feet to follow for awhile until I got knocked off. Sighting was great on the first stretch, with one small boo-boo (I miscounted, and tried to turn at the sprint buoy). However, once I rounded the back of the course I started breathing left, which meant not only could I not sight buoys to my right, but because of some sort of mechanical inefficiency in my stroke, I had a hard time sighting straight ahead. I probably added 1-200 meters by tacking left and right on the back stretch. The only other difficulty was a bad calf cramp in the last 200 meters. I've never had cramping issues during my swims, making me suspect that the wetsuit was the underlying cause.

more sighting practice, more time in the wetsuit, more time in open water.

Lost an ear plug, but otherwise all went fairly well. I struggled a bit with the wetsuit, but not too much. The transition seemed like it was about 4 miles long - my computer actually recorded .12 miles before I hopped on to the bike. First hill of the day was immediately out of T1, so a running mount didn't seem like a good idea. Calf was continuing to cramp, so running with the bike wasn't happening either.

not much.

I was able to maintain a low tuck through all of the downhills and most of the shorter climbs during the first half, and a high tuck (choked up on the bars) through all of the other rollers. The climb up to the visitor center was tough. The bike path made entirely avoiding drafting virtually impossible, but the speeds were low enough that it probably offered only limited benefit. The last leg of the climb (once you got off of the path and onto the road) was pretty gnarly. My calf was still threatening to cramp, and after severe quad cramping during the run portion of my last two bricks, I was intentionally backing off to ensure that I had something for the run. When I got to the top, I looked for a restroom (I have a very small bladder, and had been hydrating very well). My first thought was the visitor center, but the bathroom door was locked. Luckily, there was a porta-john on a trailer on the far side of the parking lot. These two detours probably cost me 2-3 minutes, minimum.

Go harder, pee in transition.

Spent way too long taking shoes off. Running shoes/visor went on quickly.

Get Tri shoes?

Like my previous two bricks, my quads were threatening to cramp. Luckily, they never did. I jogged the whole thing, exposing my need for more (and harder) bricks. For a hot day, I managed to keep pretty cool - drink one gatorade, 1/2 of a water, pour the rest over the head. Repeat as necessary.

hang out at the Michelob Ultra booth waiting for my T1 bag.


lack of intensity in training, and a large falloff in volume in the month immediately preceding the race (due to school resuming for my wife and daughter)


I'll give it a four, but with the qualifier that it probably should have been a 5 because I can't imagine how it could have gone better.