Mayor's Triathlon - Triathlon

It starts off on a somewhat slick and narrow boat loading area without a walk in/out carpet so you have to be kind of careful going out but I got close in the water w/ about 50-60 other people. Saw my uncle but couldn't find my cousin that was doing the race too. Wished him good luck and waited. When the gun went off, it was a little hectic and seemed like there were a few people that were all over the place sighting, nothing too crazy and just had to pull up once or twice if 2-3 people got in the way. Once it opened up halfway to the first buoy I felt like I was able to stretch my arms a bit, swim still time still felt much slower than Thursday's warm-up OWS when I was at 1:47/100yards. Stroke felt good and swallowed a little water, good hydration? After rounding the first and making my way to the short distance to the second buoy it continued to thin out. The third buoy was really small so I kind of tired to find a larger tree in the distance to sight off. My wife mentioned they were yelling and enforcing people to go backwards if they tried to cut off the last buoy. I thought good for them for taking it pretty serious and hopefully that would be a sign of things to come in the short race.

Not much, I wish the start was a little more spread out, but they do an awesome job of having two waves and allowing people to kind of seed themselves among the two waves.

Practiced a flying mount Saturday and other transition stuff and it went well, here I just wiped my feet with a towel and threw all my other stuff together. Bike helmet got a little hung up in my brake, ROOKIE!!!! Took just a couple seconds to undo it no sweat though. No running in transitions...kind of different but that's alright. I figured aww hell it's a short transition area so I put my shoes on in transition and walked the bike to the line to mount quickly, plus there was a large hill right out of T1.

Next week for the Oly, I'll do a flying mount. Otherwise I feel like my stuff was laid out well enough.

I was super happy when they changed the course to a 15 mile-er. Felt good to get on the bike and I was excited to see how I would fair. I enjoyed the course and like the hills that are here. I'm a big guy but like to get on the basebar and churn and sometimes get out of the saddle. I began a little too fast even for a sprint. Wore the HRM but didn't really pay much attention to it. I don't practice a lot of cornering where I ride and so that was going to be interesting, turned out okay after the first couple turns. Legs felt good and everything was going well. Passed more than passed me so that was a plus. Still being a newbie, I found myself getting into a draft area and tried to hang back enough, parts of the road were a little too narrow and there really wasn't much of an option on the 2nd and 3rd lap as the roads filled up and people got just a little backed up. Somewhere on the 2nd lap, a guy was taking a drink or something and he was a little all over the road a ways in front of me, he swerved into the cone and unintentionally knocked it over, the guy in front of me and I laughed a little and as I passed him I mentioned "Yeah...F-that cone". On the turn around point (a round about that was fun to fly through) I was going uphill and tried to shift just a little too quickly and dropped my chain, aww crap. Pulled over quick, threw it back on the chainring and we were back off, it gave me a tiny bit of motivation to go a little harder...for maybe 10 seconds then reality hit me that I'm still slow.

Nothing much, lots of fun on the course. It was good to get some cornering in and realize I don't have to shit the bed if there's a small problem.

I slipped out of my shoes on the last downhill and hopped off my bike at the dismount, but again was told by a volunteer to walk through transition, are we zombies? LOL "No problem" I said, not a big deal. Only thing I was a little frustrated with was that one of my elastic laces popped out of the clasp and I had to really quick put it back in. Other than that I was on my way. Felt strong through this transition and waved to my wife for the 2 seconds I got to see her, grabbed a cup of water for a small shot to slam and toss on my way out.

Not much, transition was laid out well enough for me, that dang clasp on the elastic laces. Will go better next weekend hopefully.

Okay, here it is, what I suck at... So my thought was just go out and bust your guts for as long as you can at a consistent pace. Well my average pace is S-L-O-W, so let's go a bit faster than that ok? Wound up doing around 9 minute miles. I began the run and my legs were just a little weak and crampy (fatigue, not dehydration). Took about 3/4 a mile and they were feeling ok. In that amount of time I heard multiple footsteps passing me, whatever knew it would happen. One guy came up on me and said, "Good pace, I've been hanging back there about 20 feet." I said thank and that I would try to stay on his heels a bit if I could. The fact that I was talking normal, enough, made me think I could go faster, the course just felt like it was going to be more difficult because there's a slow hill for about half of a mile to start. A few more people passed me and I gave a few words of encouragement (in the back of my mind saying damn you for being so much skinnier and faster, while reminding myself that I got a ways to go to be a better all around triathlete but need lots of work in the run category). The last mile I pushed as much as I could and got my pace down around 8:35-45 and finished with as much gusto as I could...did not want to be that guy passed in front of the crowd at the finish.

Continue to work on running and drop some more lbs making it easier to move my feet.
At the same time I can't deny the fact that this is one of the faster 5k's I have ever done, including a good handful of local 5k's. So I am more than ecstatic for my current ability and where I have come from.

Light stretching. Hung out and chatted with the guy that passed me and gave a couple kind words on the run. Hung out with my wife, aunt, cousin-in-law her kids and a few of my uncles buddies to see my uncle and cousin cross the finish line in 78th and 79th. Got to take some pictures w/ my wife and check his new Kestrel 4000, so much sweeter than my Talon.
Went home for a nice long nap and a Mexican dinner w/ a well deserved Dos Equis.
It was kind of fun to look at last years time: 1:42:46 overall 155/214 and this year being over 3 miles longer: 1:31:34 overall 35/247. Awesome to see those numbers and improvement in a years time.


Not a lot, felt like a win for the day. Now the great debate about race wheels with the wife and lots of justification for those and some better rubber on the bike.


I'm a little partial this being my first and now second tri, but seriously, everything is coned off, there are tons of volunteers, great post race food, lots of support from fans around start/transitions/finish (subsequently all in the same area). I was sure to scream "THANKS" every now and again to the volunteers and policemen stopping/redirecting traffic and allowing us to race. The newer course of the bike leg was fun, didn't get to see people as often, but it was fast paced and a little longer than the average sprint.