Reston Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Wow my swimming really, really sucks! My OWS ability is a monumental disaster. It kills me too, because in the pool I'm not horrible, but I can't swim straight in open water to save my life.

Anyway as far as the swimming itself goes, It feel good. For the most part I was swimming pretty smoothly and did a good job with my stroke and breathing.

My biggest limiter was the fact that I went off course like a car with a flat tire. I know its not the best measurement to go by, but my GPS had my swim at 1.24 miles... the course was advertised as 1 mile. Actually I'd be pretty happy with a 35 minute HIM swim!

Looking at my AG and OA rankings, its the swim that did me in today.

Stick to pool swim events?

Actually I need to work on my sighting a bit more, but more so I've gotta figure out why I drift so massively.

T1 was pretty good as far as timing goes. I came out of the water, got to my bike and was off pretty quickly. There were two things of note though.

1) I actually took a few seconds to sort of dry off. It was unseasonably cold this morning (62 when I woke up) and I was really fearing freezing my buttkis off on the bike soaking wet, so I just sort of mopped up as much as I could quickly.

2) The bad news. I tore up my left foot coming out of the water. I gouged my toes pretty bad. Coming out of the water you climb onto a concrete boat launch ramp and when I stepped up from the bottom of the lake to the concrete pad, I caught the edge with the toes of my left foot so I ended up slipping off, tearing up the skin on the bottom of my foot/toes. Ouch, that hurt, and I still gotta bike and run.

Nothing, other than the mishap coming out of the water and the few extra seconds drying off I think this went well.

46/454 OA and 15/71 AG

This was a really good bike for me, I'm pretty happy with the results. I've been struggling to get my bike to a place that I think it should be. I would have liked to have been a bit faster than I was, but I can't complain I was over 1 MPH faster than last year on the same course... and I still turning in a very strong (for me) run. So overall happy!

The course was a bit tore up because of the storms the night before, although the volunteers were out there doing a very good job sweeping twigs and leaves and such out of the way. Not perfect, but I'm glad they did what they did. Also, there were a few spots where the coned off portion of the road was pretty tight, and unsafe for passing so every time you came up on some one in these sections you'd have hold back... a bit of a pain, but it all worked out in the end.


Not too much actually, I think I struck a good balance between going hard on the bike, but still saving a bit for the run. I had a really good run, and I what I'd consider a very good bike for me. So other than keeping the training up to improve times/stamina I wouldn't do anything different.

T2 went fairly well. I came off the bike nice and easy and I was fondly reminiscing about last year since this was the first race I ever did I flying dismount at. At the time I had never done one, at all, not even in training. I just got a wild hair and decided to do it. This year's flying dismount went just as well I came out of the shoes just fine, swung my leg over, jumped off and ran in stride right at the dismount line.

Only issue was at this point, I had forgotten about my foot. It really didn't bother me at all on the bike and I truly forgot that it was tore up. That is until I landing and starting running with my bike. The pain in the bottom of my left foot was sharp and persistent, I was fearful for the run.

28/454 OA and 7/71 AG

Nothing. This went nearly perfect for me.

The pain in my left foot started from the time I got off the bike and didn't stop until I was done running. Actually, it still hurt after I was done running but it didn't matter at that point!

I went out of transition and just tried to settle in for the first mile. I didn't want to take it too hard from the start and I really needed to see if my foot was going hold up ok.

After the first mile I knew that I'd be ok, the foot hurt but I didn't let it impact my running. I had settled into a nice pace and was feeling pretty strong. I was glad to see that the bike didn't smoke my legs for the run. I pressed on from there and just tried to stay steady until the turn around.

Once I hit the turn around point, I decided that I had plenty in the tank and was going ramp it up. I knew that it wasn't a matter of holding on to the finish, but I could actually negative split and really pick some time up. So at the turn I said to myself "lets pick up some places" I laid the hammer down and everyone that came into my sights up ahead became my next target.

As soon as I finished the run I went over the side of the track and pulled my shoe off to see the damage. My shoe was pretty much covered in blood, the insole was covered in blood from the toe box to about the arch support. I guess I was bleeding pretty bad... I felt a bit like Curt Schilling game 6 of the '04 ALCS.


Not much really, I went pretty hard and I had a good run. The foot hurt, but I don't think I ran any slower because of it.

Walked around a bit, got some chow, and cleaned up.


My swim.


Had a good time and it was another fun race. I'd do it again, but logistically I'm not too sure.