Brett Robinson Alabama Coastal Intermediate Triathlon - Triathlon

The course is 2 laps. The only problem I had is there were a lot of slower swimmers that I kept running into but that's to be expected at any tri. I could also see some jellyfish in the water but they were underneath me. I never got stung though.

I couldn't tell if the buoys weren't straight or if I wasn't sighting very well. i felt like I was kind of zig zagging to stay close to the buoys but when I sighted a buoy further ahead I was in good shape.

I decided to not carry my shot bloks on the bike course and took 2 in T1 right before I left with my bike. I also rinsed the sand off my feet. I figured it would be a good move for the 40k ride and 10k run.

Try to go faster. My T1s are always slower than i think they are.

The course is very flat with the exception of a bridge that goes over the pass to the gulf. I stayed in 2 gears 95% of the time.

I drank 16oz of Perform and 12oz of water.

There was a very small headwind on the first 9 or so miles before the first turn around. I felt good and still averaged 20 mph though. Once we crossed the bridge after the 1st turn around I was cruising on the way back.

The only problem I had was on the 2nd turn around in the forest. I saw a sign that said "bike turn coming up" then another sign that said bike turn around but I was expecting a volunteer to be there to tell us. Well, there was no volunteer. I was following a guy in front of me and we both overshot the turn by about .35 miles before we realized what we did. I turned around an picked up the pace to try and make up time. I think the additional .70 added roughly 2 minutes from my final time. Bummer. I would have hit my sub 2:30:00 goal if i didn't miss the turn.

Don't miss the bike turn! Other than that it was a nice ride.

Just like in T1 I decided to eat 2 shot bloks in T2 so I would only need water on the run and wouldn't have to worry about nutrition.

I racked my bike, put on my running shoes, grabed my race belt, and Garmin and was off.

Nothing.

The course is a flat out and back. The only problem is it's really hot by the time you get to the run. It was hot. Running is my weakest of all 3 sports and I hoped for an 8:05 min/mile pace. I felt good for about 1 mile, but after that I knew things were going to get harder.

I made it to mile 3 and someone started talking to me and we decided to pace each other so we could finish in 50 min. Without him I would have been a lot slower. At the last aid station with a mile left I let him go ahead of me cause I couldn't keep up anymore. The last .25 mile I felt a little better and picked up the pace again.

The run was just really hot. I wasn't necesssarily tired but I could feel myself overheating and would slow down. I grabbed a cold towel at mile 3 and put it under my visor to keep myself cool and it helped a little bit. At mile 4 I spit and noticed blood, "that's weird" I thought to myself. I wiped my face and noticed I had blood on my hand and my nose was bleeding. My nose randomly bleeds enough for me not to worry about it. I just used the rag from my head to wipe the blood off my nose so people didn't think I was dying.

Maybe do more training runs in the middle of the day? All my training runs had been in the evening when it was cooler.

I sat in under a tent, drank some water, ate a banana, and tried to get my nose to stop bleeding.


The heat!


The good news is ever after I added an extra .70 to my bike ride I still managed to PR by 6 minutes.

The only complaints I have are:

1. Put a volunteer at the 2nd bike turn around. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere and the sign is pretty small and in the middle of the road.

2. There is a super sprint race that starts before the oly. They should start the oly first so we can get to the run before it's 100 degrees out. The super sprint starts at 7 but my swim didn't start until around 7:35-7:40.