Pittsburgh Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

so the first 500M was against the current and looking into the sun, so my sighting SUCKED!! I could only really see one buoy for the turn around but turns out there were two. I found this out when I was almost at the second buoy and had to swim 25M to the left to get to the first buoy. The first 500M took 14:30 against the current. I passed the point we started at 19:30, so what took me 14:30 on the way out took me only 5 MIN!! on the way back. Sighting with the current went much better and the swim was smooth. I'd roll on my back here and there if I needed to catch my breath and relax for a few seconds. Once past the last buoy you had to swim diagonally against the current for 100M to get out of the water.

As soon as I stood up the guy goes "swim to the red mat then stand up" and I tripped right when he finished saying it.

Got out of the water at 30min then had a 2min run up to T-1. I dropped the swim socks I stuffed in the back of my wetsuit when someone told me they were illegal. I found it after the race so its all good.

sight better and go harder the first 500M against the current and cruise the last 1000M.

I need to get stronger so I'm not struggling to get my wetsuit off. It easily took :30-1min to get that fucker off.

I have been using rubber bands to hook my shoes up to random parts of my bike so I can just run barefoot and step on the left shoe and put the other one over. Yet today I tried a different hook up so the rubber band wouldn't get stuck in the gears. Well the one rubber band fell off and the other came undone as I was running out. So I did a superman jump onto my bike...BAD IDEA!! I got a good 6-12inches over my seat and went slamming down...OUCH!!

try a different hook up with the rubber bands and get better at taking the wetsuit off.

Whew, so after I recovered from my superman flying I slipped into my shoes and was off to a course I've never seen before. It was about 5 miles of climbing right off the bat. There was a slight level off for 2 min then right back to climbing anywhere from 9-12mph. Get to the top and do a turn around where they had water and gatorade if you needed any then you head right back down the HOV lane. It was a tad crazy going 30mph in areo hitting rough ass roads and patch work. Then Repeat.

Nutrition. 1 gatorade bottle and 1 water bottle. I picked up a second gatorade bottle on the second turn around...should have gotten water but it was Gatorade Endurance and I just had to try it. I only had one sip and couldn't take the sodium levels. I really need to find a new nutrition plan for Oly races. I tried taking a 4xsodium Powergel on the second lap downhill but that wasn't happening!! I got 2 little sips of it and dumped the rest on the road because it wasn't going down! I just can't take sodium for some reason, I'll try some Carbo-Pro or something next time cause those gels sucked something awful!

Cool thing about the bike was the guy dressed like the Devil on the hardest part of the hill, made me feel like I was in The Tour!

FIND A NEW NUTRITION PLAN!! and not take 4x sodium gels. also get more hill practice in.

Flying dismount went well, hit the ground running at 12mph with a numb right foot! T-time would have been faster but we had to run out of T-area all weird.

notta, went pretty damn smooth

I def needed to drink more water before starting the run. I drank water at every stop except for the one I asked for water and they handed me gatorade.

Course started off with a winding ramp over a bridge. boooo. Run was tougher than I expected with the bridges and my stomach craps, which sometimes would get so bad it would shorten my breath. Another bad thing was there were no mile markers on the run! So it made the long seem soo long because I had no idea how far into it I was.

Had only 2 people pass me on the run, 1 in the beginning and 1 halfway through. I tried to stay with yellow shirt guy in the beginning but he pulled away. I never thought I'd see him again, yet with 1/2 mile to go I have him in my sights. I catch him and we have this convo.
me- "never thought I'd see you again"
him - "hey, thought you passed me a while ago"
"naw, how about a mad dash to the finish line?"
"haha this is my mad dash, but I'll give it whatever I have left"
"Sounds good, lets go at the end of this bridge."
And we were off!! It was close for a while but he dropped with about 25meters to go and I beat him by a second! It was a fun way to end the race. Little did I know a kid in age group was just 5 seconds ahead of me, prob could have caught him if I didn't stay with yellow shirt guy at the end. Oh well! how was I supposed to know, and I was happy with the way I ended the race.


drink more water before the run and take less sodium as an overall for the race.

Yellow shirt guy got out of the chip area before me and pulled me out a water, we shook hands and said "fun ending" and thanks. Got a half sandwich and a Yuengling Light...love Yuengling!


cramps and too much sodium


Pretty good race, minus the hills I wasn't ready for and the crappy roads in the HOV lane. I did this race for fun and because I was in the area, if those 2 things happen again then I'll do the race. But I wouldn't travel from VA Beach to do it.