Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

My start time was screwed up. I had put 23 minutes (knowing it is a downstream swim), but somehow ended up amongst people people who put goodness-knows-what -- I saw all sorts of amazing stuff on this swim: side stroke, elementary back stroke, strokes that I could not identify. I was fighting my way through packs of frog-kicking breastrokers, panicky swimmers who kicked like a mother when they felt you near, and once a group of what must have been 15 'swimmers' who were just sitting there treading water, apparently talking to each other (???). I've got NOTHING against these people. I'm not happy that I was placed amongst them.

I must have passed at least 100 people on this swim, maybe much more. I started as number 617 and was getting out of the water with people in the 200s, 300s, and 400s. I have no idea how much time I lost having to fight the packs. Not a whole lot, but some. Needless to say, drafting was not an option on this swim. On the upside, for one race I got to pretend that I'm a fast swimmer! 'Pretend' being the key term, there.

I got caught behind a pack of people walking to T1, which is a fair distance. Other than that, it was OK. Not great, but decent.

Hilly but fair course. I was pretty much constantly on the left-hand side of the road. I did try to pull back right when there was room. But there were very few chances to do so. It was pretty much wall-to-wall cyclists on the right and me on the left. I think I passed a few hundred cyclists, and got passed by nobody. I will say this: there were only about 3 or 4 times when I had to ease up for a second or two because of a cyclist who was blocking. (I saw nary a bike marshal on the site -- I guess they were patrolling the 'real' race up ahead.) The vast majority if cyclists were riding correctly, leaving enough room to pass on their left, holding their line, etc. That was nice to see.

The format of the results make it hard to determine overall and AG placement of splits, and I'm too tired to figure it out, but this was a top-ten split including pros (actually I beat one of the pros), so I'm happy with it. And now that I look, easy to verify top AG bike split. I'll take it.

That's better. I didn't get held up at all. Not tops, but one of the faster T2s. I had a crappy position on the rack for T2. Not sure if I messed up the path, or if it's just inevitable that your rack position can affect how far you have to run -- I had to run most of the way down a rack (100 bikes or so) and then back. Oh well. It was fine.

Yes, this is a tough course. Yes, it was hot. But still, ouch. Taking conditions into account, I guess the run reflects my current run fitness, and that's a little scary. I ran it faster two years ago when, supposedly, I was much slower.

OTOH, I was 5th in AG on the run so maybe not awful? Top pro went 40:01, which is frighteningly slow for a pro. So maybe my frighteningly slow old-guy AG time is OK. Maybe.

The race is very very well run. Swim start was much better organized than the last time I did the race (2010). Now if they could clear up the start order (mine was far from the only one screwed up), I'd give them an A+.

As I look back over the splits, this was actually a pretty typical Oly for me, even though it didn't feel that way. The swim felt fast b/c I was passing so many people, but in fact it was just average, and as it happens in Olys, a strong bike and run just isn't enough to make up for a mediocre swim.

I got '2nd' in AG, but only because the top three masters overall were M40-44. Actually AG placement was 5th.