SavageMan Triathlon 70.0 - Triathlon

I'm terrible at navigating in open water. The fog made it even harder. I zig zag too much and end up adding additional distance. When I've OWS by myself I'm not as bad, but with all the other racers out there I lose focus.

Sight better and work on a balanced stroke so I'm not pulling to one side more.

I took my time getting up to my bike. I did get my wetsuit stuck on my heels which caused some extra time. I also had some water get in my right side goggle during the swim which caused my contact to become loose and was off to the side of my eye. It took a while to get my find my contact in my eye and get it back to it's proper place. I did have a spare contact in my top post bag in case I needed it. Being that it was about 45* at race start, I put on arm warmers, gloves, and a jacket so I won't be cold on the ride down to Westernport. I went several yards past the mount line to get out of the way to make it easier to clip in.

Work on getting wetsuit off quicker. The problem with the contact was a first for me. No water got in during my warm up swim so I thought everything was fine with my goggles. This is the first I can remember of getting a leak in them. The extra time to put on arm warmers, gloves, and jacket were worth it.

I rode this pretty much like I did a training ride on this course about a month earlier. My time was very similar to that ride. I love that descent along the creek as you work your way down to Luke and Westernport. I made sure to take the treacherous turns easy, but most of the time I was in aero. I did run into a line of cars at the paper mill and towards Westernport. I was able to ride faster than they were going and got by all of them. At the base of the wall I got into my easiest gear and soft pedaled so riders in front of me got far enough ahead. I had about 15 yards of clear sailing when I got to the brutal portion. I finally got out of the saddle and hammered my way up. About 2/3 way up I got some rear wheel spin and then a few yards further my front wheel came up about 3-4 inches, but I leaned further forward and was able to make a clean ascent of the wall. I kept riding up to the clothing drop area and put my gloves and jacket in my numbered bag and gave it to a volunteer. Then up, up, and up Savage mountain. A couple of turns coming down savage mountain a very dangerous so I was glad to see they had volunteers there to help warn everybody. The ride up through elk lick state park was relaxed and scenic. I did talk to another racer going up through that section that was doing the aquabike. A left turn onto McAndrews hill and the fun starts all over again. Then the quick ride down New Germany road and a right turn onto Otto lane. I love the sign that read "Don't look left!" as you're coming down the hill towards Killer Miller. You know the pain is about to come as you look over there at the farmland. Going up Killer Miller seed easier for me this time than on my training run, maybe it was because of the "characters" that were on the hill to give you encouragement. They were great and had me laughing. Then on for a few more miles until you get that slap in the face called Maynerdier's ridge. I got out of the saddle and kept a steady cadence until the worst of it was over. The last several miles heading into the lake had a pretty good headwind so I kept in aero as much as I could here. In by the lake and into transition where the fun was about to start.

Not much. I raced this pretty much how I wanted to. I didn't want to go too hard and not have any legs for the run. I can only remember about 4 or 5 guys that passed me on the bike and stayed ahead of me throughout, so I was happy with my pace.

Coming in to T2 I was carrying a little too much speed. For some reason I unclipped both shoes out of my pedals and was dangling my feet. At the dismount line a grabbed too much front brake and did a header(there's a first for everything I guess). I landed on my left shoulder and arm as the bike flipped over me. A volunteer was right there to help me up and hand me my bike. I started to go into the wrong transition area, but a volunteer saw my race number and yelled out for me to go to the lower area. I got my bike on the race,helmet off, sunglasses off, and arm warmers off. I wore smartwool socks for the ride, but could feel they were wet - so I grabbed a spare pair of socks and put them on.

stop making stupid mistakes.

I wanted to try and keep an 8 minute/mile pace (or better) and was happy that I accomplished that. The first mile I did a little too fast(under 7min/mile), but felt good and knew I'd be slowing down on the hilly portions. On the steepest part of the climbs in the campground and firetower road I would walk them for 20-30 yards and then start back jogging. This definately helped me so that I could go a little harder on other sections. The volunteers were great at all the stands as I'd call out for coke or water. Legs felt pretty good throughout, but I did start to get some slight cramping in my left thigh at about mile 12. Glad I was able to push through that and not have it lock up on me. When I saw the sign saying mile 13 I knew I was finally done and sped up for the last tenth mile. Running down the chute to the finish line and hearing your name being called out was great

Nothing. I did a 1 loop practice run a month ago after my training ride so I knew what I was in store for. I finished under my goal pace and was happy with my run.

Sat down and got a can of coke and a bottle of water and talked to another guy that finished right after me. Then made my way to the ice cream stand and then to the food stand. I went over to the scoring tent and was surprised to see that I finished 2nd in my age group. Talked to a friend of mine that finished 2nd overall and then waited for the awards presentations.


Slower than normal transitions and my sighting during the swim.


I am really happy with the way this race turned out for me. Being it's only my 3rd triathlon ever(1 sprint, 1 other half iron, and this half iron) - I'm overjoyed with how things went. I can see why this was rated the best triathlon last year by Triathlete magazine. It's beautiful yet brutal. Like a sign said on the way up savage mountain - "They don't call this race - Wussyman!"
The volunteers were outstanding and can't be thanked enough!
I do think I've seen enough alpaca's though for a while.