Jackson County Triathlon - Short Course - Triathlon

Worst swim experience ever, had this occurred early in my triathlon career I might have simply resorted to being a duathlete. As we were waiting for the start gun 2 large groups of swimmers from an earlier wave came around on their second lap, I was lined up on the extreme inside and would have to swim through all those guys, thought about heading over to the outside but didn't think I had enough time. Gun went off and the first 200 was very chaotic as we started working our way through the traffic. There was lots of contact everywhere, most of it very polite.

About 200-300 meters in things had calmed down a lot as I and those around me had woven through the traffic, I was right on the buoy line with a few guys to my right for a good navigational reference while breathing, still some occasional contact whenever someone got a little offline but nothing abnormal. I was thinking about the rest of the race, settling into a steady but solid pace and thinking this might be a pretty good swim after all that starting chaos.

At this point I acquired on my left side someone who, depending on your point of view, either though it was cool to be the most aggressive swimmer in the world or was a complete d-bag intent on assaulting and drowning me. It started with repetitive hits on my left leg and I quickly noticed that he was grabbing a handful of wetsuit with each hit and pulling, not cool so I sighted to make sure I wasn't drifting left and pushing him off course then adjusted course a little tighter into the guys on my right, to give the guy some room, it didn't take, He was now grabbing wetsuit near my hips and slowly working his way up my back, not incidental contact. I swapped sides breathing for a couple strokes to see what was going on over there and it was just one dude looking my way when he breathed and grabbing me and pulling every time he could. So I broke contact again, altered my course a little more, and picked up the pace a bit. Not enough of a change as he got my suit again a couple strokes later and dragged me under some this time, when he got up to my shoulders and caused a couple missed breaths I had enough of this crap and stopped swimming, pushed him off me and treaded water for a few seconds to make sure he swam on. Adrenalin and a few breaths of water had me wanting lots of air so I kept my head up for a bit and decided to just get out of the madness along the buoys, I wasn't going to be pleasant if I ran into mr grabby again, started swimming wide on the outside nice and easy and slowly got back into the game.



Line up outside when I know there will be traffic like we encountered. It really wasn't that bad though, except for the grab and dunk guy, not sure how to break contact with dudes like that, he seemed intent on assaulting me no matter how much room I gave him.

Nothing notable about the transition, except the bike mount, which was crowded.

nothing.

Rode well, replayed the swim in my mind a few times trying to think of how I could have broken contact easier/earlier, still nothing, legs were tired from riding yesterday so the power was a bit low.

think I need to address this with training, build a little more leg strength

good transition, wearing socks just takes a little time

nothing

started out of transition about 20m behind a guy in my age group, nobody else in sight. He was churning out a good pace and I was conscious to not get jumpy about catching him too quickly, just hold the gap and get him at the finish, if needed. Had a few moments where I could feel my running really come together, tough to describe what or how it is happening but basically I get a lot more speed for a reasonable amount more effort, caught my pace maker just before the turnaround, passed him just after we turned and held a great pace for awhile, At this point I realized I hadn't noticed Aleks at the turnaround but knew he must be ahead of me, probably leading the age group. Kept up a good effort picking off some duathletes and the earlier waves but I was running quite a bit faster than most of them, when I got out of the tunnel I got a couple guys in sight who were running pretty quick, took a couple hundred meters to catch them, as I pulled alongside I realized it was Aleks and thought he might pick it up and give me a run for the finish as we were still 200-300m out, I was going better than 6 flat at this point and had been for awhile, hoping I could hold on until the finish. As it was, I still felt great and stepped up the pace a couple more notches into the finish. Believe I ran my way up at least 3 places in the overall.

Nothing, need to figure out what led up to this run, haven't done any race pace work in a month or more, most runs probably averaged less than 8min per mile pace.

food, drink, and BSing. Got a little hot standing around in the sun and had to go sit in the shade for awhile.


the swim, riding 52 miles the day before the race, finally ran like I feel like I should be running though


Perfect weather, nice venue, and well organized. Much smaller turnout than in the past.