Glenview Park District Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I came into this race in the best swim shape of my life, so I had high expectations. I caught the person in front of me after about 50 yards, and then saw the red kick board drop in front of me at either 75 or 125 yards. The kick board means you've got to wait at the wall for the person behind you to pass. I turned to look and still had a gap before the person behind me. It turned out that the guard was monitoring 2 lanes and was signaling the person one lane over, not me, but for some reason she dropped the board in my lane and was waving aside the person one lane over. I have no idea why . . . maybe too chaotic. By the time I realized the mistake, the person behind me was at the wall, and the guard made me wait. I sat on his feet for 50 yards and then 2 or 3 more people stacked up behind me, while I was going slow behind the person in front of me. At the next turn, the guard let the person in front of me go, held me back, and let all of the people behind me go forward. I spent the last 150 yards or doing a slow free or breast stroke.

I was really, really frustrated. Based on when the people who were originally in front of me got out of the pool, this wound up costing me at least twenty seconds, probably more. Had it not been for this glitch, I think I would have been about 10th overall and 5th in my age group. While I was fuming when I got out of the water, I tried to shake it off on the run over to my bike. There was nothing I could do about it, and $h!t happens. I just tried (not entirely successfully) to get focused on the rest of the race and was determined to hit it hard on the bike and run.

Avoid getting hijacked on the swim!

Good T1. No mistakes or time wasted.

Nothing

Strong bike! I felt cruddy during the first two miles. I was frustrated from the swim and focused on what had gone wrong. I was happy with myself for making a conscious decision to get out of Negative Land and focus on what I could still do to affect the outcome of my race.

Nothing.

I was pretty efficient here. No mistakes.

The only thing that I could have don differently would have been to run harder out of T2.

My goal on the run was to finish under an 8:00 pace (which I haven't done before with a Tri). I was a little worried that I has pushed too hard on the bike, but once I got started, I felt pretty good. I didn't panic when I saw my pace drifting up from the mid-7:00's up towards 8:00. I felt like I was in a groove that I could sustain when I hit the 7:50's, and I just held on form there. Pushed when I could and eased back a bit when I felt like it was too much. I tried to shift into a slightly faster gear with a mile left and picked it up a little more for the last quarter mile to finish strong.

In retrospect. I might have been capable of pushing a little harder on the run, but on the whole, I think I ran this the right way. Once I started off and was feeling good, I knew I would break an hour if I didn't blow up, so I was running to protect that goal a bit.

Massage. Food.


Experience, and a little bit of bad officiating in the pool. As I do more sprints at a higher level of fitness, I think I'll get the confidence to push harder at times.


I love this race. I'll always try to fit this one in to my season each summer. Also, I've got to give a shout out to the crew at the top of the hill. A big contingent of some of Glenview's Korean (I think) residents are always out there with drums, bells, etc. cheering and providing for a supportive race experience. As a participant in the race, I gotta say that they make you feel pretty special as you work your way up and down that hill (twice).