Shawnee Mission Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

It's a time trial start, which I'm perfectly fine with today. I line up as the second two-by-two pair to go in the water forgetting the fact that my wave includes all 14-39 (maybe even older I can't remember) age group males and I just might not be the fastest guy in the water this morning. Oh well, I want that clean open water in front of me.

With about three minutes to go until the start I pull my goggles on and the small plastic loop on the side of my goggle that hold the goggle strap completely snaps and breaks off. Crap. I have an extra pair of goggles, but they are inconveniently sitting in my transition bag. So I resign myself to accept the fact that I'm about to do a 15 minute swim in brown lake water sans goggles. With less than a minute left to go until the start I see a kid of about 10 years old standing next waiting to me watch the race holding a pair of goggles. My eyes open wide. I immediately ask him if he is using those goggles and he says "no" and is holding an extra pair for his older brother behind me (a 17 year old who would later kick my butt and finish 6th overall). He says I can use them. Eureka! I think I just shook his hand and thanked him but I might have been deserving of hug. I've swam without goggles in chlorinated water in a 1500m race before, but not in a 1500m lake. I'm glad today wasn't the day I found out how difficult that would be.

I took off like gang busters, with my kick going strong knowing that I didn't have to worry about kicking someone in the head behind me. The right socket of my borrowed goggles filled up with water because of the bad fit, but it was an easily acceptable problem considering the alternative. This made sighting a little difficult manageable. The drawback to the time trial start was that I didn't have much of anyone to draft off of. My stroke and technique was smooth and strong through. After rounding the buoy and making my way back towards the marina I was swimming directly into the sun. With my one filled up goggle lens the sun made it impossible to see what was up ahead. I could only see what was on my left and right. This slowed my pace down as I was constantly questioning myself on whether or not I was pointed in the right direction. This is where I lost some time. But I eventually found my way to the exit.

Don't back off my pace regardless of my sighting circumstances.

The strap on one of my shoes slipped out of its buckle loop. Lost some seconds getting that fixed. Felt slow and mechanical getting through T1

3/20
40/177

I came out of T1 fast with my HR high, but lower than normal compared to other races. The series of climbs after dam hill on the first go around left me panting hard, but thankfully that didn't repeat itself on the next three laps. I'm very happy with how I handled the hills, both from a climbing aspect and how I accelerated down hill and used my momentum to get up subsequent hills. I still have work to do in this area, but considering my current ability and past experience with the bike I got the most satisfaction from my race from this segment of the event. The only thing of significant note was at the start of my 4th lap, a female short course racer was merging from T1 with bike traffic and almost collided into me. My brain couldn't quite get out any meaningful communication when I saw this happening. I did manage a series of "Hey! Hey! Hey!" to let her know we were nearing disaster and she thankfully heard me and avoided me.

For what ever reason I didn't have the confidence to do my usual running dismount off the bike. Not enough pre-game practice to prepare myself mentally I guess. Instead I completely stopped at the dismount line and stepped off my bike. Outside of that a decent T2.

2/19
17/176

Mentally visualize my bike dismount before I actually have to do it.

Not too much commentary on this segment. I didn't tear out of T2 like I sometimes feel like doing. No dead legs but they didn't exactly feel the freshest either. I was still able to move at a reasonable race pace. For the most part I ignored my Garmin, only glancing down at it when it beeped at the mile splits. Overall, my tempo and pace were good but I felt hot and overheated despite it being a relatively nice July morning. I didn't drink much water on the course but instead poured most of it over my head to keep cool.

I didn't have anyone much my speed out there around me to catch or use as a carrot. They were either uncatchable or slower short course racers. I'll also note that I desperately wanted to walk up every single hill but I somehow mustered enough will power to accept the pain and keep running.

My pace was probably a little slower than what I would want. For whatever reason I didn't have enough of a fire lit under me at this point in the race to take my tempo up another notch.

Medal, chocolate milk, awkward photo for the seekcrun guy, and chatting with other athletes.


This was actually my first time doing an event out at SMP. I signed up in 2009, but that race was rained out, and ever since I just never found the desire to race this course. But I found that I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the race and the job that JCPRD did today.