Illinois Triathlon Championship - Olympic Course - Triathlon

Forgot to start my Garmin until I was 2-3 minutes in. Doh! Felt good and had a nice stroke going. Sighting was pretty good and little traffic. Overall, not too happy with the time. Last year I swam 29:xx. But I was 4th in my AG so maybe the course was a bit long? My Garmin said 0.92 miles even without the first couple of minutes.

Swim training has been a little lax lately, but I expected closer to 30 minutes for this. Guess I overestimated my swim fitness, again.

Run up the beach, through the pavilion and into transition. Suit not necessarily stuck, but I had to sit down to get it off. Decent time for me.

Hustle

Right out of transition you went up a hill, so I had it in my big ring and my biggest rear cog. No problems getting clipped in. I really wanted to do this in an hour flat as I knew the course was only 20 miles. There was a bit of headwind on one section and that tight turn from Pingree to Virginia broke any momentum I had each lap. Overall, fairly happy with this. It was starting to get hot too and I was sweating pretty good.

Better bike handling in corners at speed.

Decent time. I took a few extra seconds to wipe my face of sweat. Had to sit on the ground to get my socks on as my feet were wet from either the swim or sweat.

Nothing, good time for me.

Like last year, the sun came out, it was humid and I started off poorly. My run fitness has been really good all spring but I think the heat just affects me now that I am older. I also do not train in the heat so that's on me. I walked some starting at mile 2 and my lap pacing really slowed. On the second loop, there was a lot of walking as I was sweating profusely and could not get enough water in me. Ate a gel here to top of my empty tank. Convinced myself to run 2 minutes and walk 1 minute and that helped. Maybe should have started that earlier and I could have broken an hour. My standalone 10k time is usually 52:xx, so this was a poor effort. Oh well.

Either learn to run in the heat or come up with a better run strategy earlier when I don't have "it".

I was really sweating at the finish. I bet it was now around 80 and there was no shade. I did not feel bad and gulped down water and HEED, at a turkey sandwich and some Cheetos. Probably should have went and jumped in the lake to cool off, but instead, sat around in transition and baked. Packed my stuff and left. Home by 10:30. Love racing local.


Overall fitness and heat. I may do the race again and opt for the sprint.


Second year for the race. They are doing a good job and really want to make this work. They were under pressure form the city to clear out so they could open the rec area back up in time for the summer crowd, so they kept announcing to pack up and get out of transition if you were done. Not a great post-race atmosphere since we parked off-site and no one was going to pack their cars and come back down to the finish.