Monster Triathlon – Keller - TriathlonSprint

They changed the swim this year which I thought was a good idea. In the past, all athletes lined up on one side and went in based on number in 3 second intervals. This year they split the group. Even's on one side and odd's on the other. We swam up and back in the same lane, under the rope and repeat for 3 lanes. I thought it would be a crowded mess and people could collide with others but they spaced the swimmers about 15 seconds apart so it was not a big issue. In the end, however, I am not sure this really accomplished anything. I think the bigger gaps between swimmers may have negated any advantage that splitting the groups would give. I say this because I was about 30 minutes wait to get into the water. My total race time was 1:35. The last swimmer exited the water about a minute before I finished. The thought I think was that this would get the swimmers done in half the time as previous raes but it seemed to take longer. My swim, however, was ugly. Not a whole lot more to say about that. I have not been in the pool since MAY. That's right, over 5 months so I got what I deserved.

Maybe swim more, or even occasionally.

Wow, can you believe the speed of this transition! Yeah, I knew it would be long. I wanted to get as dry as possible and put on some warmer clothes so I took my time. I wore only tri shorts and a sports bra in the pool. Thought was less clothes = less to dry. I actually think this was one of my more brilliant ideas. Dried off pretty good. Long sleeve bike jersey on. Full finger gloves and socks. Yes, it took a little longer but I was very comfortable on the bike.

Regain my ability to control the weather amd make it 72 degrees out.

I decided to ride my road bike. My tri bike is already hooked up to the CompuTrainer and getting it calibrated can be a PIA. Nothing exciting. As in the swim, my total lack of training was evident. But, you get what you train for. Was not cold which was a plus.

Maybe ride a bit more.

Since all I was doing was replacing a helpmet with a hat and bike shoes with running shoes I am not sure why this took so long. It wwas quite a ways from the bike dismount to my rack but still!

Not sure. I did not have speed laces so it took a few seconds to tie my shoes and get my gloves off but otherwise think I did it all OK

These are the trails I run every day so nothing was a surprise. Just kept a nice comfortable pace and ran. Ran most of the way with a guy who was doing his first tri. We chatted. I know that means I was not running hard enough, but I really did not care. At that point I was just enjoying the day.

Nothing. I could have run much faster but I chose to be comfortable and just enjoy myself.

Steve and mom were waiting at the finish. Found Shannon, Michelle and Carol. Hung around awhile waiting for results to be posted. Took forever. Finally posted and the had all Athenas grouped together. With all athenas I was 5th. I was not sure if they were going to split them up <40 and 40> so we left before awards. Turned out they did and I was second.


Zero training, pure and simple.


There are some things DA does that are really good, but sometings that are always an issue. Tom always makes the races fun and very un-intimidating for the first timers. They always seem to have issues with results and having people wait way too long for awards.

Monster is kind of a legacy race for me. It's so close to my house that it's hard to say no to it. I do think that it is getting too big though. Having people wait over 2 hours to get into the pool is too long. Still had fun and a great way to end the season.