Aloha Triathlon - Triathlon

Not much to say about the swim. Still felt like the adrenaline rush impacted me negatively. I fell behind early but noticed on the end of the 1st lap and 2nd lap I started passing people.

Need to just work on my swim and improve.

16/57 overall rank

Transition went ok. I slowed up a bit because I briefly lost track of my bike. I had planned to put on my socks, because decided to skip it because my feet were too wet and I figured it would take too much time. I decided to just mount the bike and go. I forgot to start my watch out of transition, so the first bike picture shows me hitting the button with my chin.

Bike Leg #1:

This bike was fun. Because it was a small race, I knew I had come out of the water with probably less than 10 people ahead of me. As I exited the park, I spotted a guy in a black tri-suit and an aero helmet up ahead. I locked in on him to try to chase him down. On the first portion of the course, there were orange cones on the side of the road. It was unclear where these were there. The original course correspondence advised to "keep right" but the guy in front of me was riding on the wide shoulder. I didn't want to do that, but wasn't sure what to do. I kept following him on the shoulder and was quickly gaining. After seeing broken glass and then a tree branch in the shoulder, I decided that was enough. I went back on the road and passed the guy and stayed there.

Next, I spotted another rider up ahead and tracked him down. I did this a few times and was having alot of fun chasing. Haven't had too much experience with this. Finally, I passed a guy on a Slice and the course diverted on the main street to a few sharp corners where the course looped. I took these corners slow and Slice guy passed me up. After we got back on the main road, I quickly overtook him. At this point, the road surface started getting pretty sketchy. There was a very large, steep downhill. I love bombing on these, however the road was uneven, and I spotted several dips and potholes. I did not want to bury my bike in one of these at 40MPH so I had to control my descent. That's a shame because I could have really spaced things out here.

At one point, the race volunteer started screaming at me "7! 7! 7!" and holding up her fingers. I looked at my watch and were were near mile 12, so I knew it wasn't the mile mark and the street we turned onto wasn't 7th. I finally determined she was telling me I was 7th at that point. This was encouraging and I moved forward and soon caught 3 more people (I think).

After a few climbs and then a more technical descent, Slice-guy passed me again. It became obvious that I could outgun him on pure bike strength, but he had an obvious handling advantage and could go faster in areas that I had to slow down.

As we neared the 14.5 mile mark, the course re-merged with the sprint racers. At this point, I made some bad decisions. There were a number of slow riders, mountain bikes, etc. I got a little nervous as the course had more traffic and I didn't' want to wreck. At one point, I literally had to scream at another cyclist to move to the right to get out of my way, after he didn't move after my first 3 requests. At the closing of the first bike leg, Slice-guy and I entered transition within a few seconds of each other.

Before reading the rest of this, move down to the first part of the run, before returning to Bike #2.

Bike Leg #2:

Bike leg #2 went pretty well. I expected to be a little stronger as this leg did not have as many hills, but still had some more bike traffic. Also, I lost most of my rabbits on the run, so I was not chasing at the front. At this point, I was just focusing on laying out power and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. I spotted Slice guy at the turnaround and I estimate that he had a 3 minute or so lead on me.

No fear! I just ride so much indoors, that I don't have tons of on-road experience so I gave up time there.

T2 went well.

Nothing. Can get a little better with flying dismount, but I'm not leaving lots of time in transition.

Run leg #1:

It took me a bit to get my legs under me (as usual). I saw Slice guy run out of transition alongside of me and he quickly dropped me. About .25 miles into the run a lady caught me and she hung on my shoulder throughout the rest of the run leg (she was a short course runner). We were roughly the same pace so it worked ok, however in looking at it in hindsight, I probably should have worked harder to drop her. Pretty uneventful run. I was not pushing mainly because I knew I had another bike/run leg ahead of me.

Run leg #2:

After hopping off the bike I knew I only had a little over a mile left. I had visions of hammering this with an overgrown sprint, but I didn't have the fitness to do it. I just tried to keep a steady pace.

Run just a bit quicker.

After finishing, I put on a t-shirt and stood by transition to cheer on the cyclists. I got to see Jamie through transition and ran with her most of her run leg.


I didn't really prepare for this race that way I would if it was an "A" or even "B" race. So, I could have probably been a bit quicker with a good taper and race prep. However, overall I'm pleased with how it turned out.


I went into this race with pretty much no expectations. It was purely for fun and because it seemed to be an interesting format. Also, because I am in the middle of my training plan for a 70.3 in October, I decided to "train through" this race without any sort of taper. Basically, I tried to just adjust my training schedule to incorporate this race distance.

With that said, I'm pleased with the race outcome. I won my age group!! While there were only a few of us, I'm still pretty happy as I could have easily NOT won. I AM improving.

The race organization was quite good, especially for a first-time event. There were a few aspects of the race that I think could improve (such as marking the bike course better), but overall I give it 2 thumbs up. I will do this race again, provided it fits with next year's training schedule.