Challenge Williamsburg - Olympic Course - Triathlon

I thought that the swim went fairly well all things considered. I started off in the front right of the wave and that served as a bit of a mixed blessing. Probably had one of the shortest lines for the start of the course… but I was in with a ton of people. I must have been right in the middle of everything because I was constantly running into people or people running into me. I expect that sort of thing at the start but it happened the whole way and it played on my head a little bit. I fought through it and tried to get to some open areas with fewer people at times. Never was huge deal but probably resulted in the highest anxiety levels I have ever had in an open water swim.
Sighting went pretty well despite the smaller course markers. My lines seemed to be fairly straight and I didn’t find myself drifting to one side or the other.


Take a wider line at the start to avoid some of the congestion. I didn't need to at the front on the inside.

T 1 was slow as I expected in part due to the 400 meter run up the hill to get to our bikes. My bike had a little more space in transition than most so that helped with getting my gear on. I also had to take a little time to tidy up transition due to the logistics of the split transition areas. Otherwise it went fine.

This is where things started to go horrible wrong. Things started ok. I had a plan. Maintain mid to high Zone 3 on the HR and a cadence of 90+. I figure if I did that I should have a ride that came in at under 1:20 and probably closer to 1:15. The course is fairly flat and it should have been able to support that kind of effort. Very quickly I knew I was going to have a bad day. Very quickly into the ride my right quad was on fire and my lower back was killing me. The lower back thing felt more like a tightness/pain than any kind of sharp pain. I know that I had a recent bike fit but I had experienced no pain on my 2 training rides before the race. I also had to stop once during the ride to pick up my saddle bag which fell off once. By about 8 miles in the race turned into from a race into a test of fortitude. I spent the rest of the race negotiating with myself and telling myself that I just had to stick it out for 12 more, 8 more or 5 more miles. That and I couldn’t let a dude that was wearing his helmet backwards beat me.

Don't get a bike fit right before a race.

I was just thrilled to be done with the bike. I was so disgusted with the bike effort that I just wanted to throw the bike in a ditch and quit the race. Luckily, I came to me senses and decided to stick it out. Amazing what a large entry fee will do to your motivation. At this point my focus went from running the run to just crossing the finish line.

Not much. I was pretty much in survival mode at this point and just happy to be off of the bike.

The goal for this effort was to do cadence of 90 and an HR of about 170 until the last mile and then upping the effort based on what I had left in the tank. Unfortunately I had nothing left in the tank at the start and was pretty much out of the race mentally very quickly into the run. The heat and humidity was just oppressive and just didn’t have much will power to overcome that left in the tank. By the end of the race I was walking way more than I was running. I tried to pick up Gatorade, ice and water at every aide station. (I think there were 3 per 5k Loop). I even took some salt pills at one point. Who knows if it did any good at that point. I knew that if I kept moving forward I would eventually finish. Walk or run the only way to make the suffering stop was to keep moving forward and get across that finish line.
Other than the epically bad run, the only thing that concerned me was that physiologically I was concerned about what was going on with me. The Garmin said that my HR was never really all that high but it sure didn’t feel that way. The other thing that really worried me was that on the first loop my arms actually felt a little cool. That shouldn’t have been the case since there was no cool wind, 90+ degrees and high humidity. By the second lap I had a similar feeling on my legs. Not sure what that was but it did make me a little nervous. Getting a good result was not an option at this point and I decided it was not worth risking any serious harm.

Not much. Just tried to find some shade, drink cool fluids and make use of the cold soaked towl.


Bad bike performance and the heat and humidity just wrecked me.


Despite my miserable experience during the race it had nothing to do with the race organizers or the course. The weather on this this day just conspired against them and the participants to make the race a down right miserable affair. Their were plenty of aid stations, and volunteers, the course was well marked out and actually pretty nice if was any other day. The swag for the race was really nice as well. All things being equal I would be inclined to do the race again. However, knowing how the heat effects me during races I will have seriously consider finding someplace else to run during this time of year.