Massachusetts State Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

While I thankfully didn't realize quite how abysmal this was at the time, I was still incredibly disheartened when I saw my time coming out of the water. I've been working hard on my swim this year. I've made some changes to my form and have gotten comfortable with bilateral breathing. While I had a small sighting snafu toward the end of the swim, I felt at the time that the swim went well overall. This is why I was crushed to see that my time was virtually the same as it was last year. My HIM swim last month wasn't much better than my HIM swim from last year too, so this seems to suggest that I'm just not getting any faster. Honestly, I really don't enjoy swimming, and my main motivation this year has been that I felt that I was improving, so to find out that I'm not is incredibly demoralizing. Ultimately finding out I was 15/16 in my AG was pretty depressing as well.

At this point, I really don't know. I've been putting in more swim workouts this year, which have included speed work that I never bothered with last year, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. While I have to make it through the IM this year, I don't plan on doing anything longer than a sprint next year, given that I'm becoming resigned that I'll never improve my swim.

This went fine. I occasionally have issues with my sleeveless wetsuit, but it popped off easily and I was off on the bike...

My one decent leg! I didn't feel I put in a phenomenal performance, but it went well overall. Still haven't quite built up my hill legs, so the few that we hit slowed me down a bit, but otherwise, I felt good.

I was racked very close to the Bike In and Run Out arches, which I'm sure helped my time. Decided to take time to put on socks for the run since I figured I'd end up with blisters due to the heat and humidity if I tried to run sockless.

This went TERRIBLY!!! Generally, the run is a close second to the bike for me and, after having run a half marathon last weekend, I wasn't too worried about covering the 10K distance here. Unfortunately, it did not go well from the start. My first two miles were at a respectable pace, but I couldn't seem to get my breathing under control. Between miles 2 and 3, I just crumbled. I was shuffling and felt terrible. I ended up walking for at least a quarter mile, if not more, coming up to the turnaround point. I have NEVER walked a 10K. Usually, once I do walk, I feel a bit better, but this time I was still only managing 10 min/mile and felt terrible. It couldn't have only been the heat, although I'm sure that contributed. I suppose it was just one of those days that unfortunately, in this case, landed on a race day...

Who knows? I had no idea coming off the bike that this was going to go so poorly.

I felt awful when I crossed the finish. Mike was there waiting for me and did his best to make me feel better. He knew I'd had a rough run, since he had been timing when I should have finished and was well aware that I'd been far behind that time. Eventually felt better after resting up in some shade. Left as the awards ceremony was starting since we had other commitments that afternoon that we had to get back for.


I've done several Max Performance races, and they're always well run. It certainly wasn't their fault that I had a terrible day!