Tri for Life - TriathlonSprint

This was a solid swim. I was smooth and relaxed. Nobody every caught me from behind, and I caught 2 swimmers in front of me, who each pulled up at the next wall after I tapped their feet a few times.

Nothing.

I blazed this transition! This was the fastest in my AG by 25 seconds, and it was 5th fastest overall.

Everything went like clockwork.

Nothing.

I felt good after the swim, and know T1 went well. My mount was good, and I got up to speed quickly, but here's where my race flew off the rails.

As soon as I was up to speed, I tried to shift into the big ring, but nothing happened! I looked down as I shifted back and forth, and the front deraileur definitely wasn't moving. &^%$#^&@!

I was stuck in the small ring.

Thoughts flew through my head as I weighed my options...winning my age group again seemed to no longer be an option...do I stop and try to fix it?...Maybe I should just turn around and take a DNF...No, I'm here to race the best I can today, regardless of what hand I'm dealt!

I decided to push harder on the hills than I normally would, recover on the descents, and spin at a higher cadence on the flats. I'd have to guess how hard I could push on the hills and still save some legs for the run. It wasn't optimum, but it was the best plan I could come up with on the fly.

I found myself spinning out on every flat and had difficulty keeping power to the ground. It felt like I was coasting constantly, but there wasn't anything else I could do.

Because of the cool temperature (high 40's), I drank very little of my 50-50 Gatorade and water mixture during this ride. I think I still had about 3/4 of the bottle left after the race.

As the ride went on, my Garmin confirmed what I already knew: my pace was off considerably from what I'm capable of on this course. I just hung in there and kept fighting away, holding out hope that I'd still be able to put up a respectable run, and not finish too far down in the rankings.

The only consulation was that it was windy, so there were several stretches with fairly strong headwinds. This helped diminish the disadvantage that I had with my low gearing.

I have no idea how, but in the end, I managed to ride only a little more than 1 mph slower than last year, and post the second fastest time in my AG. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, because of the time trial start.

I came off the bike feeling a little less defeated, and a little more determined to finish the race well despite the mechanical issue.

Nothing. I handled the situation as best I could. I had gone over my bike the night before, and there wasn't any indication that the cable was likely to slip out.

This was a good transition. The dismount was good, and I was able to run fairly well even though my feet were a bit cold and achey.

My left quad started to cramp when I leaned over to adjust the tongue of one of my running shoes, making me worry that I'd cooked my legs on the bike, but it relaxed as soon as I stood up again.

This was good enough to be the fastest in my AG, and 14th fastest overall.

Nothing.

Now it was time to find out whether I'd fried my legs too much whenever I was actually able to maintain the power to the ground during the bike.

Once I got rolling, I felt ok. Not great, but ok. At this point, I was willing to settle for that.

I settled into a rhythmn at about a 7:45 pace. It was a little slower than I'd have liked, but it felt like I would be able to maintain it.

My HR held pretty steady, only climbing slightly throughout the run along with my RPE, but I was able to maintain pace.

Mentally, I was still a little off from recent family matters and the disappointment of the mechanical on the bike, so I don't feel that this was my best effort.

I didn't drink anything during this run.

Once I reached the 2.5 mile mark, I started digging a little deeper to try to pick up the pace, knowing that my friend Troy wasn't too far behind me, and he only started :30 to 1:00 behind me. I kept waiting to hear him come up behind me. He never did. He finished about 2 minutes after me.

Nothing.

Walk around talking to other competitors and cheered for others as they finished.

I was shocked when someone came up to me and said I was listed as 2nd in the AG. After the way the race went, I really didn't think it was possible for me to be on the podium!

The best part was that the race had new awards for winners this year instead of the medals they had issued in the past: Pint Glasses!


Mechanical issues, 5-10 pounds of weight gain in recent months, and missing a total of about 1 month of training since the first of the year because of two illnesses and a family issue.


This is one of the best small local races in the area. The organizers do an excellent job!