Tri the Swamp Rabbit at Furman - Triathlon

I had seeded myself at 47 with a 1:25 swim submission. this worker out perfect because I was 39th out of men and 8 women were faster than me. setup events did a pretty good job of preventing lane congestion by delaying the starts but there was still some backup. on the 3rd lane (about 85 meters in) I got struck head on by a swimmer (who later claimed he got confused on which side of the lane to swim on). this game me 3 small cuts on my head, knocked my goggles from my eyes (filling them with water). I also was expecting my nose to start bleeding but it didn't thankfully. then on the next leg he came at me again, but I prevented collision by watching out for him. my time was 5 seconds slower than last year but considering the huge collision it is understandable.

I would say watch out for oncoming traffic.

suit got stuck on my feet and almost fell over trying to get it off. I think I was still a bit dizzy from the collision at this point.

nothing

very happy with this bike. 4 major things happened since my last race, I go a bike fit from go tri sports in hilton head by alfred (amazing! best money you can spend!), I wore the pearl izumi octane suit which is fast, I shaved my arms and legs, and I ran hed trispoke front/hed jet disc rear combo. all of this caused me 22+ mph for the race with 0 hill training. also, katie malone of malone coaching is making my wife do a lot of riding in prep for augusta half ironman, so I have been riding as a safety rider with my wife. I took a gu at mile 3 and 16. my water bottle ran dry at mile 13-14. the race start was 0700 last year but for some reason was delayed until 0800, although I loved the hour of extra sleep this caused significant more traffic to be on the road and at the intersections it TR was a little sketchy.

ride hills, but nothing really.

running shoe insole bunched up on the right foot making me have to pull it off and put it back on.

running shoes continue to kick my butt.

the run course was marked poorly, a couple runners went the wrong way and a few short cut the course at the end of the pond. they redid the course this year but left murder hill in it (completely not necessary and could be corrected by running a few tenths on additional on the swamp rabbit trail). from furman you transition <100m up a rocky path to get onto the swamp rabbit trail. the swamp rabbit trail was the onyl real highlight of the run, but due to the 1 hour race delay start there was a ton of runners/bikers on the trail and they did not know how to handle race traffic, causing multiple near miss accidents. the run back onto campus was fine but the finish was super lame you ran up a zig zag next to the stadium. setup events stated "The new course will now finish next to the Football Stadium and will provide a bird's eye view for spectators of the finish line chute. We are very excited about this new change and course maps have been updated." but there were no great views. aid stations at 1 mile was good but an aid station at 2.5 miles was pretty much a waste being so close to the finish. the "new course" also got us a bonus .1 miles by GPS.

nothing, pushed as hard as I could go. ran the exact same time 23:36 as last year

finished the race, stretched out a bit. ate some food and drank some gatorade, coke, and water. found good spot to cheer for my friends that were coming in


the head on collision during the swim, lack of hill training, and bad run course.


The run could easily be made amazing by knocking murder hill out and adding the distance to the swamp rabbit trail especially since this is the swamp rabbit triathlon and then finishing the race on the football field inside the football stadium. post race was very disappointing, beverages and food ran out by the time 2/3rds of people had finished the race. awards started 75 minutes late and were not well announced, 85% of people took of rather than sticking around for an award that was a visor. bathrooms were not well advertised inside the football stadium and the aquatic center did not open up more than 30 minutes before the race start, there were no port-a-potties. proaxis did a great job post race teaching people to stretch and helped provide medical treatment when needed.