Wilmington Athletic Club Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Decent swim for me, but I'm still a little slow on speed. I had open water pretty much the whole swim, but I caught the girl in front of me on the last lap. I thought she would let me by at the wall, but it didn't happen. I could have sprinted out the last 50m better, but I spent a few extra seconds caught in traffic. After getting out of the pool the run to transition was around 80-100 meters - back down past the length of the pool to an open gate and then turn around to run to transition which was ~ 2 pool lengths away. Probably add 20-25 seconds in running to the swim time.

Overall a decent swim, but probably could have been 10-15 seconds faster. The lanes in the WAC pool were quite narrow, but I only bumped other swimmers a couple of times.

Seed a little higher. I seeded as a 1:38 or 1:40 (can't recall - signed up in Feb!), but other swimmers ahead were clearly slower. The guy starting behind me was talking about just learning to freestyle swim, and towards the end of my swim I was over 1 full lap ahead of everyone behind me. A handful of swimmers before me were hanging onto the walls catching their breath which isn't something a 1:30/100 or faster swimmer should be doing.

I felt this transition was faster than normal, but my results don't show that. The fastest time was almost twice as fast. I'm not sure I can get much quicker when putting on socks and shoes, though. I had a hard time getting clipped in when leaving transition, so that cost me a few seconds. I should have had the bike in a little lower gear, too - Didn't realize the hill out was as steep as it was.

I need to look into leaving my shoes clipped in and starting that way.

This turned out the be another strong bike ride. The race course would be nice if the pavement were in good shape, but most of the surface was below average to bad. Once I got clipped in I just tucked down and put the hammer down, though. I passed maybe 15 riders on the first lap and around 15-20 on the second lap. I did have one semi close call with a Tahoe backing out of his house, but I managed to squeak by and just kept on hammering away. With all the turns and rougher pavement it was hard to keep a really fast pace, but I did manage to keep it in the 22-24mph range through most of the course. On the second lap I hit something - a hole I guess - as I turned onto Robin Hood near the end. It knocked my front end out of line, but luckily I was close to end. As I turned onto 16th street I pulled my feet out of my shoes and made a decent flying dismount into T2.

Not much. I probably could have gone a little harder, but on the second lap I held back some to try to save some strength for the run.

A strong T2! The best time I saw here was only 7 seconds faster, so I'm really happy with that. It was a smooth helmet off/shoes on performance. I guess I could have skipped the sunglasses to save a tick or two.

Run faster and fight for a better bike rack spot (i.e. get there earlier!) - I was on the inside of the outer set of racks.

Ughh - That about sums up my run performance. As with T1, I felt I was actually doing a lot better than my results show. I knew I was going slow early on, but after the first 1/2 to 3/4 mile I kind of settled into what I felt was a decent pace. I saw the first aid station which I thought was the turnaround, ha!, so I picked it up a little until I saw runners way up the road. At about 1 1/3 miles I got passed for the first time, so I tried to pick it up and hang on. After the turnaround I got passed by a couple/few more, but once on the mild downhill I knew there was only 1 mile to go, so I tried to keep picking it up slowly. After the last bridge I felt I had pushed myself into a decent pace despite the growing heat, better than a 7:30 mile, and I prepared myself to go "all in" for the last leg back to the finish. On that leg I was really laboring, but I saw a Master Clyde ahead and I was catching him pretty fast. With maybe .1 mile to go I passed him, but after 10-15 seconds I heard footsteps coming up behind me. I looked up and saw the little bridge to the finish, so I gunned it with all I had! I actually surprised myself with how much speed I picked up in that final kick, so I just gritted it out knowing the finish was near. I almost made a wrong turn onto the bridge, but I managed to correct myself we rumbled onto and across the bridge. I swung out a little too wide on that last little run to the finish, e the guy behind me pulled beside me and we sprinted the last 30-40 yards and crossed the finish mat side by side.

Need to keep picking up my run training from my injured calf. Since Kerr Lake (3 weeks) which I didn't run for the entire 5 weeks before, I have tried to build my speed back up quickly. I probably would have felt better about this run if there had been another 2-3 weeks to train, but I felt I gave it all I had. I need to transition myself to more running outside vs. treadmill runs now that my calf seems to be fully healed. I will also add some longer runs as more frequent brick runs as well.

After my finish line sprint I was gassed, so I caught my breath and cooled down with my wife, and spent some time with my parents who came to watch. I had a couple bottles of water, a gatorade, and some fruit and pancackes in the gym. After cooling off I packed up my gear and loaded up my truck before the awards presentation. After picking up my award I met fellow clyde Gerard from BT. Nice meeting you!


Run training for this race, and maybe a little bit because of the heat. Once of these days I want to run a 5K in the 22s!


I have to admit, this was probably my least favorite setup race so far this year. The whole race seemed ho-hum for some reason - not sure why. Between the narrow pool lanes, the rough bike course, and the slight unorganization I'm not sure I'll try this one again.