Mountain Lakes Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I have to say this was my third open water and the most congested for me. And the most murky. Handfuls of seaweed at times. Yucky! I guess it was good because I actually caught up with people but man it was kicking and pushing and splashing. For the first 1/3 of the way, I was intimidated by the crowd but then said "crap I am not letting these people determine my pace" so I started fighting back out there and started swimming over people, pushing them out of my way, whatever it took.

My pace was 7 sec/100 yards better than my last pool tri but I have to say, I still am not giving my best performance here. I sighted well, didn't go off course but never really felt like I had long stretches of good swim technique...too busy fighting the masses.

I need to seed myself lower. I am swimming better lately in practice and just spend more time than I like fighting a slower crowd that isn't even really swimming.

I need to be more aggressive from beginning and just push past people and not wait so long.

Overall, I also think I have too much nervous energy in my swim and need to relax and settle in sooner. I actually like these longer (along with Mach tenn 1000 and chatanooga 1700..) I seem to get better the longer I am in the water.

I actually think once I get some of these little things worked out, I might actually start getting decent swim times! I still feel like I haven't swam on a race what I know I can do yet.

OK, I will say this. We had to run from lake to T1 and T1 was big and I had to run my bike as far away to exit as you can go...this T was much bigger 1000 vs 300 a couple weeks ago...and I was still 8 sec shorter than 2 weeks ago.

My biggest problem and I am a clutz getting my shoes on. I am always so shaky I wobble and have to sit to put on shoes. I talked later with my tri club about me practicing with my shoes clipped already in and that is my goal.

Also the second I got on bike, I rode over someone's helmet sticker and it was swooshing the whole damn 16.25 miles!

My goal: push it. Chris kept saying: renee just when you are comfortable at a pace push yourself further. And well I really tried to keep that in mind. They seeded us by age/swim time again so lots of goooood bikers swooshed past me...more than I can remember. But I passed at least a dozen people and that has never happened before...even some strong looking guys. And mostly...on the little inclines! I peddled my booty off. I never let myself take a coasting break. I ate 1 cliff bloc 1/3 in and then had a gu right before I got off bike. Oh and I used the big girl gear most of the way and kept my body in the lowest position almost the whole time (as low as you can get with a road bike).

The other big thing I did this time was actually pick people ahead of me to aim to catch up to and pass. some I thought were pipe dreams, but I actually caught more of them than I thought I would so I need to keep doing that.

Anyway, even on flatter roads like this I have never averaged above 16/16.5 mph so I am excited it was close to 18.

At the time I thought pushed hard and my time improvement showed that...even though it was not as hilly and you didn't fight the uphills, you still had to consistently push w/o any big downhills.

So given the training and practice to date, I did the best I could. More training, better speed for the future!

I think I was as fast as I could have been here until I am just 'more fit'. Again bigger transition than last time so more distance to travel and still beat my tiem by 7 seconds from last race so getting better.

I put socks on again. I got blisters the last time and didn't want to deal but my feet were still wet so that made the time stretch..so for 3 mile runs, ditch the socks.

I thought I left T2 at 1:15 on my watch and by mile 1 I was at 1:23 and change or a 9 min mile. I finished at 1:44 so I thought I ran under 30 minutes and was stoked! But after seeing the results it said I was out there 32 minutes. Bummer. So not as smoking BUT it is the strongest 3 mile brick run I have had in any of my training practices or in a race this whole summer so I am happy with that. (my times have been 11:30 pace this year so got down to 10:45..not bad) Frankly even in my regular runs I am struggling to do better than a 10:30 pace lately so I was quite pleased.

My stomach cramped by mile 1 for the first time so I skipped the first water stop. But I ignored the pain and just thought: 30 minutes...thats it and then you can bitch about the pain. I ran the whole way. I stopped to walk about 10-15 seconds when i finally got water. I desperately needed it and I suck at drinking/running.

It was great on the run trail. I ran into most of the entire HEAT tri club team and we all slapped and encouraged each other. It made a huge difference in my motivation I know. I finished with a strong sprint. So strong I almost passed out at the finish and had to walk around for a bit and get my bearings.


I think I was so happy with my 'supposed' run time that I kept the pace I was at and tried to have a good run. There were times I wanted to walk and didn't. But given the sprint I did at the end, I still think I had more in me than I thought so still room for improvement there. So maybe stop looking at the watch. I also knew I was hitting a time of 1:45 ish and that was 10 minutes better than my goal time and I think I got too happy/relaxed about that.

But overall I think I pushed myself further in this race than in previous races and so that was great.

Had some water, red bull and cheered in rest of HEAT team. Got some food...yummy Arbys! Took a group photo of us 'after' all purty! and yikes...had to ride the damn bike back to our car. That bag felt like it weighed more than me!

Drove the 3 hrs home. Fought to stay awake so i wouldn't be the rude passenger. Got home. Loved on Eli and walked him. Took a nap!


Just ineexperience. I think considering all I have had to learn this summer and the lack of base I came to this sport I did very well today. And look folks...about 100 people finished behind me. I am still the BOP but nearly so bad :)

And so..just wait until I have the winter to train!


Another great race by Team Magic. They make it easy enough for a newbie to feel at home but well done enough for the expert to feel good too.