West Point Lake Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

This is a time-seeded start and so they line you up and send you off 2 at a time every 5 seconds. I love this kind of start because you don't end up getting kicked nearly as much as wave starts. I lined up with the person next to me and was waiting for the guy to tell us to go and I remember thinking "What am I doing? I'm not ready to do this today." And then he said "Go." So I went.

Swim went really well. It was difficult to tell where the buoys were at times, but I mainly followed the splashes in front of me and then tried to find them. After the main turnaround, there was a shallow muddy area. I saw people stand up and so I stood up too. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was. I think that it is faster to walk across areas such as that, but I also know that doing so brought my heartrate WAY up which I wasn't too pleased with.

There was one other spot similar to that near the end and I stood up there as well. I nearly punctured my foot on the rocks in that area, but thankfully it didn't affect me later on the run or bike. As I was getting out of the water, my watch read 23:00 so it must have taken about 20 seconds to run up the boat ramp to the transition area.

Overall, I'm pleased with my swim. I took about 1:30 off of my time from this course last year.

Have it rain more in Georgia so that the lake will be more full? Oh - also, I would probably try to get in the water before the race starts to get in a *little* warmup.

Fast transition. Almost no one was in the area when I went to get my bike so I had no issues.

I forgot to set up my water bottle to throw water over my feet after running up so I had to put socks on with little pebbles still on my feet. This didn't hurt me during this race, but had the potential to.

First time racing on my tri bike and 3rd time EVER on it so I was little nervous. Getting into the new speedplay pedals took me a little longer than it usually does, but nothing that slowed me down too much. It was nice to be out on the course when not a lot of other people were out there. I was able to keep my own pace without worrying about if I could catch the person in front of me and STAY in front of her the whole time.

My bike was smooth and handled everything well. I still struggled a little bit to get up some the hills - my quads were burning, etc. - but hopefully that can be attributed to not tapering this past week at all. I took 5 minutes off of last year's bike time. I don't know how much that has to do with the change in the bike and how much it has to do with the improved efficiency of the engine.

Train, train, train on the bike. I think that I'm finally starting to see some light - this is the first race that I've average over 20 mph in - but I'm still getting passed WAY too much. To go from 1st in AG in the swim to 5th on the bike says something.

Fast transition, but I had a tiny mishap. I was trying to race my bike and almost knocked the one next to me off. I could just see myself creating a domino effect of bikes and so I adjusted the other bike so that it would stay. Got everything and got out of there.

Not knock other bikes when coming in.

I jogged out of transition area and waved to my admirers. Spectator support was great here - everyone was cheering you and saying that you looked strong. I always tell myself to just run one mile at a time and it will go by a lot faster. For the first 3 miles, my lower right leg felt like a solid piece of wood. I couldn't get it to work out for anything. I was hitting my times right on, but I couldn't make my leg feel any better.

Alternated water and gatorade at each rest stop. We crossed the dam and the guy before had said "There's a nice mist coming up from the dam. It'll feel good." What he forgot to mention is that there was also a fishy odor rising up from the dam and it DIDN'T smell so great. At mile 3, I took a gel and drank 2 cups of water. This was the only time I walked on the run (for about 15 seconds) to make sure that I got all the fluid down.

Miles 3-5 felt much better. My leg FINALLY figured out that it WANTED to run today and so these 2 miles went by easier. By mile 6, I knew that I only had one more mile to go and I really wanted to hit 2:30 and so I just did what I could.

I know that I've missed some of my bricks after longer training rides and I think that they would have helped. I'm happy with my run time though considering that my legs had no rest the week before.

Walked into misting tent. Got my t-shirt. Ate some fruit and cookies and drank a diet coke. Sat around talking while I waited for my friends to finish. No massage because I thought that people that needed them more than me should have them. Hung around for the awards ceremony.


Since I'm training hard for Steelhead 70.3 in 2 weeks, I was told that I needed to train through this race. Since I've never done that before, I guess that I can consider this my first 'B' or 'C' race. A fresh set of legs and just some more rest would have put me more on my game. I don't think that I would have found myself up at the start wondering what I was doing up there if I had tapered a little bit.


This was my first Olympic last year and I loved it then. I love it now too. I think that Gamultisports puts on some great races. Everything was organized and on time. Volunteer and spectator support was terrific for this race size. Age group award was a hat with the West Point Lake symbol embroidered on the front and your place on the back that can be worn during races.

I'm pleased with my race results as well. I managed to take 10 minutes off of this same race from just a year ago. The competition was fierce and I think that this race is just going to get bigger and bigger. Last year, my 2:40:xx was enough to capture 3rd in Age Group - now a 2:30:xx got me 3rd. I can't wait to see where this race goes. Hopefully, i'll be able fit it into my schedule for years to come.