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 Swim
Comments: The swim felt good. Going in to this whole tri thing last fall, the swim was what I was worried most about. But I've come to really like it. I got slapped around a bit, and a guy tried to swim over me once, but I intentionally started slow and on the outside, so mostly I did OK. I got stuck behind 2 guys doing a slow breast stroke for the last 80 yards or so, so my dreams of a lightning finish were dashed. But that was OK. I glanced at my watch coming out of the water, and did a double take. 5:09?!? For a quarter mile? I was expecting about twice that. My friend Kevin (also a BT guy) did a bit of googling after the fact and determined that if the course was actually 440 yards, then 3 people in the race broke the previous world record for a swim of that length. By far the more likely option is that the course was about 50% too short. But I wasn't ab out to complain as I came out of the water - it gave me a bit of a boost going into the bike. What would you do differently?: Start a bit more aggressively, now that I have a bit of confidence in my swimming ability.  Transition 1
Comments: T1 was not pretty, but not as bad as it could have been. I put a shirt, helmet, and bike shoes on (no wetsuit), grabbed my bike, and ran over the chip pad. Due to my inexperience and the sizable hill immediately out of the chute, I decided not to do the cool shoes-on-bike, pedal-on-top-of-shoes thing. Good call. I stumbled a bit getting on the bike, and had a bit of a time getting my shoes into the pedals. Not impressive to an observer I'm sure. But I did better than the guy who came out of the chute right ahead of me, who really struggled going up the hill and getting his feet into his shoes at the same time. I passed him swiftly, trying not to gloat. What would you do differently?: practice getting those damn clip things into my pedals  Bike
Comments: I was pretty happy with the bike. I have a problem, though, with numbness in my extremeties when I ride. I need to figure this out if I want to keep doing these, because by the end of this ride I couldn't feel my feet, or the fingers in my left hand. I'm guessing that's not a good thing. I pushed hard on the bike, determined not to save anything for the run, since I felt like the run might be miserable anyway due to the heat (and was I right!). So I felt pretty much like I had nothing left as I headed into the transition area again. What would you do differently?: I really need to train on hills and with wind. This race had both, and my training rides has neither. Transition 2
Comments: Due to the aforementioned numbness and general leg fatigue, T2 was miserable. I did not take my feet out of my shoes, jump off a moving bike, run with bike, or any of the other cool stuff mentioned above. I also took really freakin long trying to get socks on. My wife, who also is a tri veteran, gave me some weird elastic laces for my shoes, but I didn't use those because I never got around to training with them, and I wasn't sure my shoes wouldn't just fall off. What would you do differently?: Fix the numbness-on-the-bike thing, try running without socks, or very short socks, and use no-tie laces.  Run
Comments: The run was supposed to be the part of this race that I would do fairly well on, as I have always been a runner (and never a biker or swimmer). But it sucked. I couldn't maintain even a stagger up the hill out of the transition, so I walked for a while. As I mentioned earlier, I really didn't save anything during the bike, so I had no strength in my legs for that hill. At the top I started jogging, and all the way down the big hill I was trying to get a reasonable gait going, with legs still like jelly. I also had some cramping in my gut, perhaps from too much gatorade during the bike, since I rarely get gut cramps. I think probably water would have been better in the bike bottle. But it might have been the heat, too. So the first mile was a nightmare, but then I started getting into a bit of a groove. From then on my running felt reasonable, though the heat really set in and I was just thinking about when the next piece of shade was, or the next water stop. By the time I hit the hill going back up, I was feeling pretty good, but really hot. On a cooler day the last 2.3 miles might have been pretty good. What would you do differently?: Do the bike-to-run transition in training. I had never managed to do a workout that included that transition. Kevin says it gets easier after you do it a few times. Also, race on a cooler day. Post race
Warm down: I jumped in the lake and sat on the bottom, so that only my head was above water. I felt like my head was glowing. Everyone else was doing the same thing. There were lots of red faces poking out of the water - quite a sight. Event comments: This was the first year of the YMCA doing this race. Other than poor measuring for the swim course, they did an excellent job. There were tons of volunteers everywhere on the course, lots of water, even mile markers on the road for the bike and run. Thanks for a great race! Last updated: 2006-08-05 12:00 AM
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Pickle Events
90F / 32C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 75/179
Age Group = 30-39
Age Group Rank = 0/
This was my first triathlon, and I was a bit nervous in the days leading up to it. This condition was not helped by the forecast of 102 degrees for the high on race day.
My sister Deb and I drove into town the night before the race and drove the race route, which was VERY helpful. It really helped to know where the hills were in the ride, and to know about the really frickin big hill that you descend in the beginning of the run, and ascend at the end.
We also scoped out the transition area and we looked out over the water and eyeballed the swim course. From there it both struck us as a very short course. "Hmm, " said Deb (who has done this race several times before), "the swim looks really short." I chalked it up to Deb's experience in other triathlons, which generally have longer swims, and didn't think anymore about it.
On Sunday morning, it was hot. Hot and sticky. Looking back at the weather stats now, I see that at start time (8:30am) the temp was 82, with a dewpoint of 75. By the time I started the run (about 9:30), it was 85, and by the finish 30 minutes later it was 90. And sunny. And did I mention sticky?
Anyway, Deb and I arrived at the site at about 7:15, and got a sweet location in the transition area, and started setting up. I had a huge bowl of Raisin Bran at 6:30 before leaving, and I felt rather bloated. I really didn't know what to eat before something like this. But it worked out OK, I guess.