The West Branch "Battle at the Branch" - Triathlon

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/325333405

There was no timing mat at the swim exit, so the official swim time includes the long run up to T1. Time here is my watch time which should be accurate.

Pretty solid. Just need to keep working on swim endurance.

I subtracted my watch's swim time from the official Swim + T1 time to get this leg. Was surprisingly out of breath running up the long hill to transition. Was able to get top of wetsuit off while running and leave goggles and cap in the sleeve. Had a little trouble getting the sleeve over my watch. Once at my transition area, got out of the legs. surprisingly had no trouble getting the leg over the giant-sized timing chip. Might be because I slathered it with Body Glide. Wetsuit got a little stuck on the other foot, but overall not too bad for first wetsuit race. Helmet and glasses on, pushed bike to timing mat and hopped on. Pedaled on top of shoes to get up to speed and got feet in shoes just in time to get to a congested area of the course.

More wetsuit removal practice?

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/325333425
Pressed lap button late, so only got 23 miles of the bike.

Had two bottles of half-strength Infinit on my bike. Finished one and didn't touch the other bottle.

Need to build strength for hills.

Had a good transition. Took feet out of shoes as I reached the parking lot. Dismount was right at the transition mat, and some guy was trying to unclip his shoes right in front of me. I rode right up to the mat and hopped off so there was no need to run with the bike. Racked, helmet off, slipped shoes on, grabbed hat and race belt and started off.

Time is included in bike split.

Nothing. It was fine.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/325333445

Took the first mile out a little aggressively at 7:19. Decided I would try to hold 7:30 pace as long as I could. This was good motivation to make up time from the slower uphill sections. Got a little disheartened by the final run through the parking lot serpentine at the end. Could have pushed that section a little bit more, but no competitors were around.

Maybe pick a little more aggressive pace to hold, but overall it was close to a best effort after pushing the bike.

Walked around and ate post-race food: banana, coke, water.


Training, fitness.


I was a bit disappointed with my time, particularly the bike, given the relatively easy course. Felt like I was giving it a consistently hard effort and saw consistent speeds > 20 MPH. Needs to be better.

Two of top three overall were from my age group. Sixth place listed at 32 yrs old in the results, but he is actually 42. So if you eliminate top two from AG awards, I was 2nd.

Happy with swim effort, though time may not show it if the course was long. Pretty happy with run time: 3 minutes faster than Pittsburgh a year ago and 3 minutes off my standalone 10K PR.

Although there has been a race at this site before, this was the first time with this course and with the Half option. At times it was confusing which way to go. Orange arrows (Olympic) looked similar to red arrows (run). Some volunteers seemed to understand which race went which way and were great about yelling it out, some had no idea. Colored arrows were helpful.