Monticelloman - Olympic - Triathlon

The swim felt pretty good overall. I did some drafting on the long section. According to my Garmin, I went off course a bit in that section and ended up swimming an extra 150-200 meters.

I need to navigate a bit better and keep working on the swim segment for open water races. I'm not sure how to improve this other than with additional race practice.

It took me some time to get my feet into my shoes. This was my first race with my bike shoes. I also realized that my gels didn't stay taped to my bike, so they fell off. Finally, my bike didn't stay on the transition bar well with the new saddle and kept falling off the bar.

Practice transitions. I have neglected to practice these.

I found it a bit hard to stay in aero for long on the hilly section. I enjoyed the downhills with my new tri bike. It helped to pick up speed to use to get up the next hill section.

Not a lot. I just need more hill practice. And to figure out how to set up the bike a bit better for nutrition.

The dismount line is at the bottom of a hill outside the transition area. To be certain no one has an advantage based on where his transition area is, they made you run with the bike to the back of transition and then up to your spot. Mine was near the front, making for quite a long run with the bike. I had some trouble racking my bike with the Adamo saddle and also with getting my running socks on so as not to be twisted.

Again, I need more preparation and practice. I lost a lot of time in the transitions of this race.

This was tough. I really struggled with all the hills. Running seems to be where I make up time on the field. I don't know where it came from, but I seem to be a good runner. I tried to push the pace as much as I could, keeping splits between 7 and 7:30. My first mile was actually sub-7 minutes, probably too fast, as I had to hesitate (not really stop) on several of the hills late in the race.

More hill practice. Otherwise, probably nothing else.

Water and Papa John's Pizza. Talked to a number of other finishers from Richmond. It seems like half the people there were from Richmond.


I might be a bit under trained at the moment, due to taking time off for our cruise, for all the kids' activities, and for my broken wrist this spring. Hopefully, I can get the training up again to perform better in later races.

I should do more hill training, practice transitions, and work on more open water swimming to not swim too much additional yardage (meterage?). Swimming is hard enough without the added distance.


CMS doesn't put on quite the event that Setup does for its races, but overall it was a pretty good race. The course was challenging for me. There were not quite enough volunteers at the finish. I had to get my own medal and water. They seemed to be running out of water. The race announcements were a bit chaotic and hard to follow. Overall, however, it was a pretty good race.