Pinehurst International Triathlon - Triathlon

It was a pretty average swim. The sun was intense so sighting was a bit difficult at times. I think I swam fairly straight. I cam out of the water 2nd in my AG but I was a full minute behind Edmund.

I still need to train more. I've only been swimming twice per week and often not even twice.

There were some faster transitions in my AG, With putting my socks on though I'm not sure there's much time I could shave off.

Getting my shoes on on the bike is still problematic. Need to practice that more.

With the hills and the wind it was a bit of a tough ride. I pushed pretty hard. My average HR was 177, which is REALLY high for me. I tried to keep it below 170 but with the hills I was constantly going over threshold and then trying to recover.

I didn't know who was ahead of me coming out of the water. I passed a number of guys but fairly early on I got passed by a guy in my AG. I tried to stick with him (legally) but couldn't and let him go. A while later I passed d00d. I was surprised because he is a fast cyclist. He told me he had had an accident getting onto his bike and he had a torn, bloody foot.

I finished out the ride and while I was pretty spent, I felt pretty confident about still being able to run based on some hard, long bricks I've done recently.

Other than more training, nothing.

Smooth and fast transition. Fastest in AG and 3rd fastest in the race.

This one hurt.

For the first few miles I was cruising around my goal pace. I would go overt threshold on the hills and then recover a bit on the downhills. It was painful but I just kept thinking, this is just like an interval speed workout. I can do this for 6 miles.

I literally saw 2 people those first 3 miles. I passed a guy and then d00d passed me. Now just a brief tangent here. What both d00d and I were doing falls into the same category of "running" but in terms of how smooth and fast and light he looked and how much I didn't, I think we were engaging in different sports. And this is even with him having a badly injured foot. Anyway, I managed to give him a high five as he passed me like I was standing still and off he went.

Now about this time I was pretty sure I was in 2nd in my AG and I have to confess, I was okay with that. I don't want to say I was going to mail it in but I really had no desire to crush myself (go to the hurt locker, dark place, choose your saying) on such a nice morning. So I was just hoping I could stay out there on my own, not see anyone else from my AG, and bring it home.

Well, that wasn't in the cards. Around the beginning of mile 4, I heard footsteps. A guy from my AG passed me going fast (we'll call him Runner 1). And I heard another guy behind me. I decided I wasn't going to let this happen. I fell in with them and had pushed hard. After hurting like this for a while, I slowed a bit to see what AG the guy behind me (Runner 2) was in. Because if he wasn't in my AG, 3rd place was sounding really good. Sure enough though, we were in the same AG. So I stuck with them. My average HR for those last 3 miles was 182... way over threshold. And the hills were way above that. There were many times when I just about threw in the towel because hey, 3rd vs. 4th in an AG at a local small tri is really a silly distinction anyway, right? But I didn't, mainly hoping one of them would.

With about a half mile to go on the last steep hill, Runner 1 took off. And he looked like a really good runner. Neither of the other two of us could go any faster. So now it looked like Runner 2 and I were in for a sprint when we were both at the end of our strings already. We gradually pushed harder and harder. As we round the corner for the stretch to the finish line and I was getting ready for the final pain, the other guy grunted "Screw this, I'm done. It's yours." Thank God! Still, he stuck on my heels and I had to really push to finish ahead of him.

After nearly puking in the finishing corral, I chatted with the other couple of guys. We all congratulated each other and shared war stories.

I finished with a 7:05 pace which is pretty fast for me given all of those hills.


I wonder if I pushed harder earlier how long I would have stayed away from the two guys who caught me. I suspect they would have caught me anyway. If I am going to get better at these Olympics I need to focus on my run speed.

Mostly I just tried not to throw up.


I need to swim more. I also need to focus on my run speed for these shorter sprints and Olympics. I was beaten at Triangle and Pinehurst on the run.


What a beautiful morning and fun race! I'll definitely be back.

Austin 70.3 in a few weeks which is the A race this fall.