Freedom Springs Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I had no wetsuit. I took some good advice from BT'ers and got in about 10 min early to adjust. It's a good thing I did too, as the water temp literally took my breath away the first 4 times I tried to swim. I finally got fairly well adjusted in time for the start. I was more agressive this time and took a good line and just duked it out when necessary. Instead of falling back I swam into a good spot and held it. My breathing was way off at first again, breathing every stroke. It took a good while to get into my stroke, which is naturally fairly slow and long, but gives me good speed in the pool. My main goal for this race was to swim better than my first race, closer to my acutal training times, and I succeeded. Normal pool time is ~1:45/100, first race was ~2:15/100.

No chip system, so no idea of rankings per age group or segment.

Just need more practice OW racing. Its the crowd, not the OW that throws me off. Also, despite the cold I would swim sans wetsuit again. The swim was short, and I think messing with the wetsuit would slow me down more than it would help. Don't know for sure, as I haven't swam in one yet.

Time is a guess, as I didn't hit my lap button until starting on bike. Went well, except for how far from the swim venue it was, and having to run barefoot across some gravel.

Zip

I didn't get into my shoes until the top of the first hill. I did pretty well on the bike, being passed by less than 10 people, but passed fewer than in my last race. I had trouble with one turn, didn't slow enough, but did better afterwards. I finished strong.

One cool thing is that I was less than 4 min behind the leaders at the turnaround. At least I didn't start the run as the winner was finishing.

Begin RANT. This was a non-drafting race, but two of the guys who passed me on my low end Trek obviously didn't care. About 2/3 from the end these two guys on nice, and I do mean nice, tri-bikes pulled around me, drafting each other the whole way. I mean, if you've got a nice bike, fine. If you're faster than me, fine. If you have to cheat to get ahead because you can't accept your own abilities and training - STAY HOME! End RANT.

Maybe not push so hard on the bike, to save some for the run. It's hard though, because I love to ride fast, and I'm actually fairly competitive on the bike.

Time is guesstimate. No official dismount line, and lousy running surface kept me in my shoes right until the transition area.

Zip for this race and these conditions.

Argghh! Hills. (Notice the recurrent theme - I live in flatland.) Used too much on the bike, then came out of transition and immediately started up a hill. By the time I got to the top I had passed 2 people. Of course my HR was at 163, and never went below 157. Still got passed by a fair number of folks, though not as many as at Mistletoe. My two favorites were the guy early on, who zipped by, looking fresh and smooth as silk (later found out he was part of a relay team), and a young lady/girl with pink hair (reminded me of a picture of my wife from her teen years.) I'm still pretty slow at the run, though training times have been better.

Just need to keep on plugging away to build a big endurance base. Either that, or save some reserve on the bike --- Naah! Going fast on the bike is way too much fun to slow down.

Walked around a bit, drank some water. Hugged my wife and kids. Tried some watermelon, but it was too grainy to enjoy. Chatted with a couple of folks. Thought about staying around for the awards, but the kids were tired from getting up early, and hadn't brought swimsuits to stay and play in the park. So grabbed the kids, a PBJ, all organic and homemade, from my wife, and headed home. Forgot to stretch, and my legs protested the last half hour in the truck.


Still need to build my base. It's only in the last two weeks that I've gotten up to running 3 times a week. Other major problem was upset stomach and resultant lack of sleep the night before. I will be much more aware of pre-race nutrition from now on.


Overall a beautiful venue and a fun race. I will probably do this race again next year if I'm not on call. It's close and convienient. The downsides were the lack of timing chips and the rough roads for the bike segment. It wasn't quite as well organized as the Tri The Parks races, but sufficient for what it was.