5150 Kansas Triathlon - Triathlon

Every race report I write about trying to find myself in the swim. Today, since I didn't want to be here anyway, I decided to just hang back and relax. I was NOT going to go through anxiety that I frequently have been having.

One thing that does not bother me too much is contact in the water. Today, however was a little weird. About 1/3 of the way into the swim, a guy started grabbing my ankle. By grabbing, I don't mean he kept hitting my feet. I mean, he was latching his fingers around my ankle and hanging on. I kicked like crazy. and he stopped. I don't know what was up with that.


It worked in that I didn't have much anxiety, but I may have been TOO relaxed. I thought my swim was decent, but my time turned out BAD. I guess I need to continue to tinker with my approach. I'm usually in the front half, of the middle of the pack on the swim. I guess my "too easy" approach was just that...too easy.

Also, I think its time for me to finally take some new training steps to improve my swim. Thinking about some ideas on this now. The approach I've used for the past 2.5 years had not yielded much improved results like I've seen on the bike and run.

T1 was ok, but the bike mount was slowed by the fact that as you exit transition, the bike mount line was on a hill. This caused a fair amount of back up at the line and quite a few "wobbly" cyclists who were trying to get going. I"m not afraid to start in the baby chain ring / granny gear so that first climb was not big deal.

swim faster, so I could be in front of more people.

In looking at the transition times, this was the 2nd fastest in my AG, so evidently it went pretty good.

Overall, I thought my pace was good. I have never raced in Lawrence and had never experienced the cross winds and the dam hill. I felt I actually handled both pretty well by remaining calm, in areo and with high cadence. I had only briefly looked at the course map and seemed to remember seeing a pretty sharp turn after one of the descents, so I never really barrelled down any of the big hills like I can. It turned out that everything was pretty straight and I could have.

One thing that I did not like was that it seemed that the bike course was very narrow on the mile into transition. Also, a portion of the road (right side) was sunken, so that made the last portion of the bike a like more slow going. I was not in aero and accelerating down that hill because I was afraid I'd collide with a runner or someone who was in the center lane.

I think I will do better on this course in the future, just because I'm a little familiar with it. None of the hills bothered me too much (not saying they are easy). I'm a little disappointed in my time (again), but I guess the course may have been a bit long and perhaps the wind slowed me more than I had expected.

Bottom line, however, is my bike training has not been intense enough lately. I've been shying away from the Sufferfest in favor of fewer TSS points and I'm seeing some decline in bike strength. This, combined with vacation....Time to ramp it up.

My bike split was right at middle of the pack.

T2 actually didn't go real well. Above I mentioned the slow descent into T2. I was locked in on not running into the guy in front of me (I did not want to pass, because of the uneven surface and narrow lane) and I completely forgot to pull my feet out of my shoes. I suddenly got to the dismount line and quickly unclipped. While I did this, I was thinking about how removing my shoes in T2 was going to slow down my slick transition. Thinking about this almost caused me to fall over, as I forgot to unclip the other foot! Fortunately, I was able to wiggle my shoe out in time.

More focus. I've gotten pretty decent at transitions, and my mind was just distracted.

My T2 was 12th in my AG...and I'm pretty sure I wasted 10-12 seconds with the shoe fiasco...

I didn't feel great on the run, but it's obvious that the extra time I've spent running has really paid off. This run is my 2nd fastest 10K time, and I never really felt very good. I didn't feel bad, but I thought I was running a minute slower per mile. That's a good sign for me. Increased frequency has been a huge help, I think.

I don't think I would change too much. Just more work, and more time training to get faster. This is one area that I feel like I'm making good steady progress.

After the race, I was pretty discouraged. I knew by looking at my watch that was going to be in the mid-2:40's. I knew I wasn't having a great race, but I was still hoping for something faster. Since one of my main goals for doing this race was to see where I stood in terms of qualifying for a 5150 spot, I was pretty sure I was buried pretty far down the list.

I ate a part of a bagel, grabbed my stuff and quickly headed home.


Two things: my mental approach was bad. All in all, however, my effort on race day was pretty good. Probably, more importantly, but the last 3 weeks have not been strong training wise, and I think that probably had a bigger impact. I'm still not sure how to juggle doing a race-a-month with a training plan. (trying to plan to "peak" fitness wise"). I think I got it right for Chicago, but not right for this race, thus the 14 minute difference on race-day.


This is my 2nd experience with this RD. I'm unimpressed. The 5150 series is the biggest Olympic distance series in the country (behind ITU, I guess) for age-groupers. The championship brings out the big dogs. Somehow, this RD managed to take this exciting element of triathlon and make it "meh". They know how to make a boring sport (for spectators and anyone who isn't doing it) even more boring. Little things like an announcer, microphones that athletes can actually hear, sweeping the transition area (near my bike, I found about 5 rocks almost the size of golf balls lying around...those would have been very painful to on the heel if someone stomped on one in transition). Maybe I expect too much, but I've seen many other RD's do stuff like this.

As a final note...when I got home, I checked my official results. Well well well...I finished #15 in my Age Group. Grabbing a qualifying spot for Hy Vee. That race was BAD and somehow I qualified. I feel almost like I stole something....but it's kind of funny too. I can't help but think that is the slowest qualifying time ever. So, the question I have for myself is: how do I feel? Do I feel like I accomplished a goal? I mean, I DID get #15. And you can only race who's there. On the other hand, I was expecting to have to go about 2:30 which is what I did at Chicago and knew I wasn't in that sort of form. Anyhow, now I face another debate: go to Hy-Vee or not? Decisions, decisions.