TriRock Austin - Olympic Course - TriathlonOlympic

I swam all over the place. I must have. Or the swim course was long.
But most likely, I swam wide and added extra distance.
I felt smooth the whole way and never got rattleded which was nice.
But it could have been a couple of minutes faster. I guess that is the good news about the swim. The difference between a good one and a bad one for me is only 2 or 3 minutes.

get in there and be willing to mix it up more.

The transition run in this race is pretty long. And the grass / dirt / cement is a bit sketchy so I opted to run in my shoes. Which is a little tougher. Had trouble at the mount line getting my leg over. Not a big deal.

I had 1 bottle of perform between my bars. I launched it about 5 minutes into the bike. I made the decision in the moment to just keep riding. The thought process was something like - it is a short race, you are going fast and are a ways away from the bottle already and there are lots of bikes around and stopping / backing up could be dangerous.
Beyond that, the bike went fine. My HR worked its way lower and lower as the ride went on while my pace picked up. If tis had been a bike race and not a triathlon, I would have been pleased with my execution.

I either was impaceted by the lack of fluid or I over cooked the bike when it came time to run.

Had a little trouble at the dismount line. Bikes were stacking up and as I went to hop off and run the folks ahead of me came to a complete stop. I had enough space to stop without hitting anyone but it took a tiny bit of time.
other than that, I really didnt have anything to do in t2. rack bike, slip in to shoes, grab a gel and visor and go.

My plan for the run was to take the first 2mi with my HR in the upper 150's, the next two in the lower 160's and then the last to at threshold (which for me is 170.)
But right out of the gate I could not keep my HR out of the 160's. So I felt like I was on the defensive right out of the gate. I tried to slow my pace to get control of my heart rate and run my plan but it was not working. So I just let it be where it was.
I was running really slowly for the HR that I was printing. To me this means that either I overcooked the bike (possible, but my wattage was not sky high. The IF for the bike was like .89 or so) OR I really should have stopped to pick up the bottle.
Or, I am not giving the heat enough credit. It was hot and humid. Still, not way off in terms of time for me. My run on this course last year was 51min so I was only a few minutes off of that.

By the time I was on the run there was not too much that could be done. If I had a mulligan, I would have stopped for the bottle on the bike and perhaps dropped the pace in the final 5 min of the bike to lower my HR.
Once I was out and running, I wasnt limited by feeling like my legs were tired, rather I was limited by feeling like my heart ws going to explode...
Also, It might just be that I am training for a longer race in late october and have not been focused on enough higher intensity work lately.

This was a b priority race. I didnt taper much and focused on making sure my wife had a great weekend. I swam too wide and made a mistake on the bike that I think cost me on the run.


Fun race. very fast bike course. I like the idea of the "rock and roll" races gettign in to tri's but they have some bugs to work out in terms of getting bands on the course. Still, a good time.
If I were to only pick one ofthe down town austin races, I would pick the cap tex in may. Slightly cooler weather and a big pro turn out. I like to see the pros.

I forgot to mention that I still took 9 minutes off of my time from last year on this course so I cant complain too much!