Buckeye Lake Triathlon & Duathlon - TriathlonSprint

Well, I was hoping to improve on this swim over my last swim -- which didn't go all that well, although my time wasn't all that bad in retrospect. Still, on the last swim I had a bit of an OWS freakout, and I didn't want to repeat that this time. I wanted to just keep my head down and stroke on this.

I kinda was successful in that goal, and kinda not. I still got a little bit freaked out in the washing machine at the start, and purposefully hung back several times in the hopes of getting some clear water to swim in. I did have a little bit of stress/adrenaline/panic at the beginning, but I forced myself to slow down and take big breaths when I could. Seemed to work.

So I made good time, though I was never able to draft. After rounding the turn and starting back, I got kicked in the cojones pretty viciously by a guy who was actually on his back doing some sort of a crawl stroke. He apologized, I said it was nothing and that I had chosen not to father children anyway.

I'd say that this was a good swim for me, but then again that ain't saying much.

Swim faster. No, seriously, this is my worst discipline. I've demonstrated that I can do the distance in race conditions; now I need to pick up the pace and swim like I'm racing. I think that here, and in transitions, is where I'm going to be able to make up time.

Bit too slow on this, I'm afraid. I could go faster -- but I think I don't have the confidence to run out of T1 WITHOUT stopping and thinking through things for a bit. this kills time, but calms me down. Maybe I'll get better at just doing this reflexively rather than thinking through it.

I made the decision before the race started to keep the coffee shop covers on my cleats while I ran the bike to the road. See, there was the fairly long grassy run from the exit of T1 before you got to asphalt, and I was fairly sure it was too muddy. This resulted in me having to take off the caps and put them in my trisuit pockets, but I still think it was a better idea than getting mud in my cleats.

The other option would be to perfect the shoes-on-the-bike method, but in order to perfect that, I'd probably have to try to do it at least once, and I think I'm going to fall over the first itme I do it.

Go faster.

This was okay for the course; the bike route was pretty slow, with rolling hills and lots of right angle turns; winding, rolling hills for the first third. Once you got through that and to the flat straight part, I was actually pretty tired out, and couldn't really hammer like I wanted to do. So, slow course, which I think affected everyone.

Had a Hammer Gel at the beginning of the ride, washed it down with water, drank a full big bottle of water of the length of the ride.

I passed a few folks on the bike, which is always nice. Along the way I passed a guy riding my exact back -- blue, 2006 Felt S32. But HIS bike had a HED 3 spoke wheel on the front and some lenticular disc on the back -- and I just BLEW RIGHT BY HIM with my crappy Shimano training wheels. TOASTED HIM. Man, that felt good. We had the same bike, we had the same course, he had better wheels, BUT I HAD THE BETTER ENGINE!

GO FAAAAASTER!

FASTER! Gotta go faster! Don't know why this was so slow . . .

Go faster

Unnnnh, okay. I shoulda gone faster, but after my first split came back at 8 minutes, I knew I wasn't burning up the course. If I had known that I was just two minutes behind the third place guy in my AG, maybe I would have turned up the heat. But I had fun, so I guess that's something.

I didn't drink at all on the run -- this is part of my new plan. Hydrate on the bike so it could do me some good on the run, but just use the water to cool off on the run. It felt good -- not sloshy, and not dehydrated.

RUN FASTER!

Food, cheering on buckeye66, then getting in the lake and waiting around for phoenix. I spent most of that time thanking the LORD that I didn't run the International distance, cuz it got HOT out there. Started thinking about my next race . . .


I dunno. I'm going to say that the two places I can make up time in the future are on the swim (duh) and in transition. But on the other hand, if I had KNOWN that I was just two minutes off from placing in my age group, which was my secret goal for the last two months, then maybe I would have run a bit faster. Run pace is a big thing for me -- I've got to do some more intervals and stuff to get that pace up.

Any expert opinions? Where can I cut time?


I like HFP a bunch. They're organized, on-time, cheerful, and most important, CHEAP! The only problem with this race is that the snooty Buckeye lake residents didn't come out and volunteer. They had lots of cops, but almost no volunteers -- they didn't do bodymarking for want of volunteers, and the bodymarking is my favorite part! So, snooty Buckeye lakeside vacation residence owners, you suck.