Columbia Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

This was strange. I felt like it was a solid swim, but I was a full minute slower than last year. No issues with sighting & swam straight. I had a nagging feeling last year's swim was short, so maybe it really was. But others beat their swim times so I don't know. Certainly the course this year was hugging the shoreline more than last year (which led to more seaweed than usual).

2011: 21:52
2012: 22:55

Bad T1.

While stripping my wetsuit off, my goggles got knocked off too. I thought they were still in my wetsuit sleeve, but then I realized they were gone. By the time I realized it, I was 30 yards past where I must have dropped them. Not running back at that point. So the goggles were lost for good (I looked after the race but they were long gone).

Then I ran to my area and squirted my water bottle on my feet to wash the grass off. Oddly, Gatorade came out of my bottle. Weird, I must have messed up filling. Then I tried to put my shoes on and found that they were too small. What the hell? Why don't my shoes fit? And why are they a different color than usual? Oh. So apparently I was at somebody else's T1 station.

Was kind of disoriented at this point, but managed to move over 4 bikes to find my spot. Not sure if this happened because I was overtired or if I just wasn't paying attention. I really do apologize to whoever's T1 station I totally screwed up and wasted their Gatorade.

After all this, I expected my T1 time to be even worse than it was. But I think there is another 30-45 seconds to find in here.

2011: 3:25
2012: 3:31

Just about everything.

Good solid ride. Went hard but not too hard. Had a couple folks on tribikes that I kept leapfroggong - they would blow past me on the downhills, and I would pass them back on the climbs. One day I need to figure out if this means if I am working the uphills too hard or if my aerodynamic position is just awful (or both). Or maybe I need to upgrade from my road bike.

Due to a bunch of reasons, I really haven't been able ride outside much this year. So I wasn't expecting a big improvement over last year.

2011: 1:18:53
2012: 1:18:41

No issues here. Realistically I am not going to get much faster here just due to the distance to run (and that downhill that I am always worried I will fall down with my post-bike wobbly knees).

2011: 1:44
2012: 1:25

So the run leg is always my achilles heel. But I have been running a ton over the last year, and getting successively faster. So I was really hoping for significant improvement on the run leg. It just didn't happen.

Immediately off the bike, my legs felt as fresh as they ever have for a run leg. But then my side cramped up about 1.5 miles in and I fought that the rest of the race. I tried water & Gatorade but I don't know if that made if better or worse. I don't know if this was a fitness issue or a nutrition issue. And the heat was really getting to me toward the end - every time I left the shade the sun was tough. Had a couple of hills where I really had to fight the urge to walk.

I gave the run everything I had; I was totally spent at the end. So it's not like I left anything on the table. But I actually slowed down from last year, which was really depressing - was hoping for significant improvement.

2011: 58:32
2012: 58:54

massage



Was just really disappointed in my time overall. I could think of a dozen reasons for this: heat, nutrition, taking a couple weeks off training for medical reasons, travel, my focus being more on Eagleman this year, etc, etc. But this was my first race where I felt like I took a step backwards. I guess I just need to be putting more into this if I want to keep improving.

Total time:
2010: 2:44:26
2011: 2:45:26

As always, a fantastic event. I had a good time visiting old friends even though my performance was disappointing.