Great Buckeye Challenge Sprint Triathlon - Triathlon

An average swim - much more comfortable with other people jostling around me in the water than I used to be.

From now on, I will find someone associated with the race and have them tell me exactly what the course is for my distance/event prior to getting in the water.

A pretty big race, so a pretty big transition area to get in and out quickly. I had wrapped my cycling shoes and running shoes in plastic shopping bags considering the deluge during registration, and while it took a little time to get them unwrapped, I was happy to have dry shoes.

Still putting my shoes on and running in cleats - maybe someday I will get comfortable with keeping my shoes in the pedals.

I also noticed this in 2012 - I swear the course is longer than advertised (14.5 miles and not 20km/12.4mi). Now I'm beginning to think my cyclometer needs calibrating.

Still need to push it more on the bike. It always seems like a delicate balance between not hard enough and too hard, with too hard resulting in a lousy run.

As with my bike shoes, I wrapped by running shoes in a plastic bag to keep them dry. While it added a little time to the transition, I was very, very happy not to be running in soggy shoes.

Not much. Happy with this transition.

Tried a few new things/cues - 1). deliberately went out at a slower pace than usual for the first mile (~8min/mi) and picked it up from there, 2). tried to keep my arms down 3). tried to keep good posture, imagining that I was being pulled forward by a string from my belly button 4). raised my shoulders to my ears a couple times to keep my upper body relaxed. Also, I ended up sprinting down the chute in a neck-and-neck battle for 9th place (which I lost, but apparently he wasn't in my AG anyway?)

Result: a PR on my 5k!

So it was only a 1-second PR. And the previous PR was this same race in 2012, leading me to believe that the 5k run might be something more like 4.7k. But either way, as I always say here, what I would do differently is run more.

Shook hands with the dude who beat me at the line, sucked wind for a bit, and had a couple cups of lemonade and a banana while stretching on the beach


With only two weeks between this and my previous race, my training was what it was - no additional interval work would have improved my fitness by this point. As in previous races, the bike continues to be my weakest leg and will be the target of my future training.


This is, and continues to be, a very large race/series compared to some of the smaller events I do each summer, but it was much better organized and coordinated than my previous experience in 2012. The only thing that kept the events from going off on time was the weather. I like this race because the ride is fast without being dangerous (no ridiculous descents) and I seem to do well on the run course.