Hot Dam Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Two waves: men, then women + novices (it takes a strong man to wear a pink swim cap). There was not a lot of jockeying for position within my wave - plenty of room to start on a wide beach, and really just not a lot of people. I think my line was probably off a little bit on the way to the first turn buoy - I could tell from shore that the bigger sighting buoys were staggered, so if you took the straightest line you'd go "between" them, but during the swim they were both on my right. Oh well. I did turn well at the first turn buoy, IMO, and that was right around the time I caught the back of the first wave.

On the way to the second turn buoy we were going into the sun, and there was just a little mist on the water, and I could *not* see the turn buoy. Fortunately, at that point there was a nicely spread out line of men from the first wave ahead of me, and I figured if I just followed them, I'd get there eventually. Eventually the buoy appeared, a little to the left of where I expected it, and the rest of the swim was uneventful.

Work on sighting and keeping a straight line. I don't think it was too bad but I probably lost a little time to my less-than-direct lines.

As I was running up into transition, the race director was announcing over the PA, "If you're a man coming into transition, you're at 29 minutes or so. If you're a woman coming into transition, you're at 26:15." I woo-hooed at that. T1 went smoothly - the time looks super fast but that's just because the transition area was so small. My sunglasses were foggy from the humidity - is there a trick to prevent that? - but I put them on anyway.

Learn the magic technique to keep sunglasses from fogging.

So, once I was on my bike with my foggy sunglasses, I realized I could barely see. We looped around the parking area and out the park road and I was pretty slow and tentative during this section until my glasses cleared up.

I have to admit I have no idea how to pace/manage my effort on a Olympic bike leg. I felt like I was at pretty close to my sprint effort, though I let myself coast a bit on the downhills and probably took the uphills slightly easier. This is where the small size of the race really came into play - I didn't have a lot of company for the first 10 miles or so. There was an older guy who passed me probably about 5 miles in and slowly moved ahead of me - he was in my sights for almost the whole bike leg. Around mile 12, a woman in black passed me - the first woman I'd seen, and I wondered where I was in the field. I didn't know if any women had beaten me out of the water.

The last ten miles or so there was a little more traffic - mostly men passing me, but not blowing by me. The nature of the race - its small size, and my fairly quick swim split - meant that anyone who started the bike ahead of me would probably stay ahead of me, but a good number of men would be faster than me on the bike. I took a gel with around 20 minutes left.

The run course was visible on the last stretch back into transition. I saw a woman in pink, along with the woman in black who passed me, so it looked like I was in third.

This was a pretty good bike for me. I could have gotten up to speed faster at the start of the leg. I might have been able to push a little harder on the downhills but I think the breaks helped.

A little wobbly coming off the bike. Got my shoes on quickly, and put my number belt on before I ran out of transition. Grabbed my visor and put it on on the run.

I was a little slow, but steady and no fumbling.

It didn't take me long to get my run legs under me, and off I went. My run isn't pretty, but if I'm doing it right, I can just keep plugging along. On the first out, I saw that my friend Lee was way up ahead of me. I gained on him and by the first turnaround I was pretty close behind him, waved hi as we passed, and in a couple of minutes I caught up to him. He said, "I think you're the third woman." I told him it seemed crazy to me, but that's what I counted, too. He told me to go on and keep my pace up, so I did.

It really did seem uphill both ways - because it was gently rolling, the downhills weren't that noticeable, but at that point every small uphill seemed like a trial. There was another woman not that far behind me, and the good thing about the double out-and-back is that I could see where she was. She was definitely gaining on me but by the last turn I was pretty sure I had it. In the end she was less than a minute behind me but I did come in third - my first (and I suspect, last) overall placing! Seriously, it was a small, small race (16 female finishers) but I feel really good about my effort, and it was a 6 minute PR over the Oly I did in May.

I'm not sure how I feel about the double out-and-back, other than being able to keep track of the competition. It actually made the course seem more populated, which is great with 50 racers but with 150-200 I suspect it would be chaotic.

Nothing.

I grabbed a drink and did a little walking around the park as the rest of the field finished, then had a little food (they had trail mix, deli sandwiches, fruit, cookies, etc). It was a nice event with a good communal feel.


I'm still improving, I feel pretty good about where I am at this point in my first season of triathlon. On this day, I think I did what I could. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that I'd do a 2:46 Olympic triathlon in September or get any sort of podium placement, I'd have said you were crazy. In the long-term, I know the bike holds my biggest room for improvement, and I need to get serious about the run and lose a little weight. If I can keep my swim where it is I'll be perfectly happy.


This was a really nice first-time Olympic tri, well-organized and put on by Setup events as part of their new Georgia Triathlon Series. I hope it continues in future years. The course was not too tough - rolling, but no killer hills. Post-race goodies were good, and the prizes were novel and fun (wine!).