Heart of the Lakes Triathlon - Short Course - Triathlon

This was a truly enjoyable swim. I honestly can't remember better swim conditions in a race, for me. It was overcast, so sun was not an issue. The water was 80 degrees, which was awesome, and the air was cooler with lower humidity, so NO GOGGLE FOGGING. Yay!

No wet suit. Just ran in, drafted well at the beginning, and just stayed out of the fray the rest of the way. Felt really good, especially given that I've been in the pool about 4 times this summer.

I probably could have stayed a bit closer to the buoys on the way out, but other than that, not much. I'm pretty happy with 3rd in my AG.

Meh. This was ok, as usual. I actually ran from the beach to T1, where I usually don't on this course. My previous T1 time was 3:30, so it made a little difference.

Well, run faster, but you know...not my strong suit.

Decent bike ride. Nothing stupendous, but not terrible. Although 16.8 is pretty fast for me, this is a fast course, so really it's not that great, as shown by the 27/34 AG rank.

I figured out in the first couple miles, though, that one of my gear shifters was not working. I couldn't shift to the small chain ring, so I was in the big ring the whole time. It was fine because there aren't really any big hills on this course, but there were a couple of times that I might have switched if I could.

(Yesterday when testing out a minor chain fix, I fell just as I was getting back to the garage. (P.S. Those new cleats work like a champ! :-P) I was too busy tending to some scrapes and the massive bruise on my butt to really make sure the bike was ok then. And I didn't warm up on it today, so I didn't even know it was broken until I was out on the bike course. Such an amateur. lol)

Well, actually test my bike after falling on it, for one thing. And train more, which always goes without saying.

This is exactly the same avg pace as my last race. The overall times are only 3 seconds different. Consistency is where it's at.

Nothing to see here, move along... Again with the consistency. Last time was 2:03, this time was 2:04.

I should use speed laces. Same song, different day

Well, in a slight change of pace (heh...punny!) I actually was slightly less glacial for this run than last time. Although 12:12/mile is still very slow, it's better than the 14:08 average from two years ago. I know I was doing a lot of walking with my sister in that race, but I don't think I wouldn't have run much more than that even if she hadn't been with me. I actually remember being glad she was there to use as an excuse for walking. :-/

So, I ran a lot more this time than either of the last couple of years, and I think I may have actually passed a couple people. The weather was SO. MUCH. better (cooler and less humid) than year than the last two, that I'm sure that helped.

Push myself more when I stopped and walked. There were a couple times when I probably could have kept going, but I'd say "It's an uphill, it's ok to walk..." I'd think about it and then start running again shortly, but I really shouldn't have walked at all.

Again, nothing new here... training and weight.


As always, this is a great race and venue. Despite still being undertrained and slower than molasses, I was actually fairly pleased with this race. I cut about 5 minutes from two years ago, so hey, I'll take it.