Philadelphia Triathlon in Fairmount Park - TriathlonOlympic

Most everyone has seen in the news the horrible weather the east coast has been having. Its been raining non stop for days on end. Philadelphia was no different. It rained most of the weekend except race day, Sunday morning. The race director warned everyone at the Saturday briefing that if it rains hard the night before the race that they might cancel the swim.

While setting up the transition area at about 5:45 AM they made the announcement. NO SWIM. The water was too dirty and filled with debris. There were a lot of unhappy people, but what are you going to do? Roll with it. The race director decided to add a 5k run prior to the 40k bike and final 10k run. This worried me because I'm nursing a stress fracture in my left foot. The injury is almost 2 months old and has been feeling pretty good, but I was worried that a 5k run before the bike and 10k would be too much.

Average Pace: 7:29

It was very humid and I was soaking wet after running the 5k. I fumbled with my bike shoes and glasses. I could have taken 1 minute off my T1 time had I focused and not fumbled.

Speed the hell up.

Cycling is my strength. I depend on it to make up for the slow swimming and average running. I was worried coming into this race that the wet roads and twists and turns would slow me down, or wreck me. I train in the hills so I wasn't worried about the climbing. I haven't done any high-speed cornering on my tri bike so I planned on going easy and avoid crashing.

As soon as I got on the saddle I started pushing hard. My legs felt good. I had no idea how fast I ran the first 5k so I knew I had to go all out on the bike portion if I were to improve upon my last Oly Tri time (2:32, NYC tri). Almost immediately we hit a hill and began climbing. I hadn’t checked out the course so I had no idea what I was in for. The course was very hilly. At the bottom of every down hill was a tight turn. This was a very challenging, but beautiful course. On one of the downhill portions we had to cross under a bridge and make a sharp right turn. I came in too hot and the road was wet. I got out of aero and prepared to brake but it was too late. My rear wheel came off the ground and skipped a couple of times. There was another racer to my left. He did the same. Somehow we both managed to stay up. After recovering we both looked at each other and commented on how that was a close call.

There were portions of the course where we would descend and corner and crowds lined the streets screaming and cheering. This was VERY cool. It reminded me of how the TDF would feel, or other major bike races. Whizzing by people at 35 MPH was exhilarating.

Average speed: 22.4 MPH

Again...I screw around too much. I need to learn to rush myself more.

My legs were starting to cramp on the bike so I figured my calves would go once I started running the 10k. Strangely enough they held together and didn’t cramp. I felt I was running at a fair pace because my breathing was controlled. Although I had my watch timer going I wasn’t looking at my time because I didn’t want the time to screw with my head. The run course was not marked with mileage markers, with the exception of mile 1 and mile 6. I made it a point to run behind a person who’s pace seemed manageable. This worked for most of the run. Towards what I thought was the 4 or 5 mile mark I started asking people if they knew how much distance was left. No one, including the volunteers seemed to know what mile we were at or how much further we had to go. I kept a little money in the bank for the last couple of miles so I could cash out at the finish line. At one point I asked one person where we were and he pointed to the ground where a big red 6 was painted. I was .2 miles from the finish line and I had too much money in the bank to spend in .2 miles so I turned the thrusters on and went for broke.

10k Pace: 7:52


Know the course and where I'm at so I can better gauge my effort and speed.

Grabbed a Gatoraid and my medal and headed back onto the course to cheer on the rest of my TNT team. I was the first to finish so I stayed on the course to cheer on the Team.


The rain really put a damper on the event. Not having the swim really through a wrench in things but I was OK with that. Had I swam I would probably add another 5 to 10 minutes to my finish time. However, running a 5k takes more effort than swimming 1.5k...in my opinion.




The race director did a great job setting up the race and dealing with all the unhappy athletes. He had to make a tough call when he canceled the swim but it was for our safety. The river looked like chocolate milk with a steady stream of debris floating on top.

I knew there were a few BT folks at this race and was looking for BT jerseys but didn't see any. There were a couple of BT members in my heat, group 5 with black swim caps, but I still didn't get to meet any of them. For those BT members in my group (black) I was the person in the purple TNT singlet with full sleeves of tattoos on both arms and back. Anyone see me?