Monster Triathlon – Keller - TriathlonSprint

The swim started of pretty good and felt nice and easy. I passed two athletes and got stuck behind someone. I tapped her on her feet multiple times and almost had to pull on her ankles to get her to move over. She cost me some valuable time and in a regular snake pool swim I would have been able to pass her but with oncoming swimmers I wasn't able until we hit 200m. I was at least 1 minute slower than what I know I can swim in competition.

Not much I can do different. Its the off season now and I will need to keep my swim endurance up. I will be swimming once or twice a week to keep my base.

Coming out of the Natatorium and running into transition was brutal. As soon as I got to my gear everything felt as if it was wet because it was that cold. I put on my socks and bike shoes and threw a hooded sweatshirt over my tri top. I also put my bike helmet on backwards and was wondering why it didn't fit right ... that cost me a few seconds as my hands were really cold.

Practice transition ...

The bike course was a little longer. I believe my Garmin 910XT showed the course to be about 12.5 miles. I thought I was killing it on the bike but I guess it didn't There were a lot of riders on the course once I got on the 2nd loop. At some points there were way too many athletes and I had to slow down some to make sure not to get a penalty for drafting.
By the time I was done with the 1st loop I couldn't feel my feet anymore. It was still in the thirties and I felt it.

More time on the bike ... trainer rides and the weekly outdoor ride.

Running in the bike shoes with frozen feet was bad. It felt like I had big rocks hanging on my feet. My fingers were frozen even with the gloves but I decided to leave the gloves in transition and go for the run without the gloves.

Nothing I can do different here other than more transition training.

Coming out of transition and starting the run was weird. My feet frozen solid felt like bricks. Once I got half a mile into the run in regained some feeling in my feet. I started to feel some major pain in my toes. I felt like all of my toes were broken and I was still running. It took until I got to the turn around that my feet felt fine. I gave everything on the run and left nothing on the course.

More run specific training in the off season in addition to the bike training.

I went straight back to transition and took off my sweater and socks and put on dry clothes. I added about 3 layers until I felt cozy warm. There was a warm up but not a warm down ... :-)


Frozen feet ...


As always Dallas Athletes Racing did a great job with the event. Pancakes and hot coffee after the run was awesome. I also really enjoyed the bike jersey that was given to all the finishers. Something different than your usual T-Shirt and socks. The only thing I didn't like was the swim set up but I understand why they are doing it the way they have it set up.