Buck Creek Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

Well, let's see. Not all that bad of a swim. I swallowed some water after getting kicked in the side rounding the first buoy, and the subsequent coughing spell resulted in a stitch in my side that took a while to ease out of. Isn't this sport great?

Still, just swam and swam and swam. Had the stupid backup goggles on, but they were fine; I never even thought about them.

Swim time included the 250 meter run up the steep hill from the reservoir to T1. That would make me feel better about my time, except for the fact that the top finisher in my AG finished the swim AND THAT RUN in 11:53.

Damn.

Learn to draft; do some more OWS to try and stick to a line. I guess, on reflection, the OWS I was doing in Lake Superior wasn't really helping my navigation -- we were just swimming along shorelines or beaches, we weren't swimming to a bouy, so sticking to a straight line wasn't crucial, or even noticeable.

On the positive side, note that I'm getting the basic mechanics of swimming down -- the stroke, the breathing, not freaking out. I'm moving on to the more advanced parts of tri-specific swimming: OWS, drafting, navigation.

Once over the timing mat into the TA, I had to run the length of the TA to my bike rack, over some damn painful gravel on the asphalt. Hurt like hell, made bad time.

T1 itself was too slow. I decided, at the last minute, to change from the sunglasses to the clear glasses, since the sun hadn't comeout in the time I had gone in the water. Should have anticipated that. Killed some time finding the clear glasses.

I should go ahead and start practicing the shoes on bike thing. That would help my time.

Go faster. Develop leather soles for feet. Obsess more. Obsess about my relative level of obsession: Is it enough? Too much? Not enough? Just right? Obsessive? Excessive?

I figured I'd go out hard on this one, and I did. I like the bike, I'm comfortable on the bike, I'm getting better on the bike, get the hell out of my way, I'm on my bike!

Felt good to just bomb it. I don't think I got passed by anyone in my AG, and I evidently passed a few of mine -- fell in with a group of sprint duathletes who were swapping back and forth (no drafting) and talking it up. Had a Sheriff's deputy tell me "Go get 'em, tiger!" -- must be the Javelin trisuit. Saw the guy on the Felt S32 with the hed 3 spke/disc that I had passed at Buckeye Lake and told him that I recognized his bike. Had fun!

Oh yeah, the road was wet but not soaking; I was never too nervous about traction, but that's because I'm stupid.

Had a hammer Gel and a full big bottle of water over the course of the bike.

My Cateye says Average 20.6 mph over 13.97 miles in 40:45, though the chip times are quite different -- I'm sure the Cateye counted all the running-with-the-bike minutes at the end, as I had to run ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE TA yet again. Max 32.2 on the Cateye which is okay; chip says average 21, which is nice.

Save a bit for the run? (Oooooooh, foreshadowing!)

Faster! I stopped to fish out my visor -- why? I don't know?!?! It was still overcast, I didn't need a visor! And yet Istopped to get it. I'm a dork.

Not be a dork.

Well, something weird happened here. I didn't bonk, exactly -- I don't know what this was. But I ran much slower than I had anticipater, and much slower than I wanted to, and I'm lucky that I got through the run in the time that I did.

I got off the bike and felt pretty good -- marked out a tall runner in my AG 50 meters ahead and said I was going to run his pace. I was doing good for the first 500 meters, but then started to feel bad -- queasy stomach. Kept going, hoping it was a crazy legs transition thing, run through it. Got to mile 1 in 7:30, that's okay, but then I started to fall apart. Blah, gack, burping, sotmach feels full and queasy. Had to walk a bit, run a bit. Got to the turnaround and started to feel better -- marked out an AG guy who passed me, and we traded spots a bit. I was feeling better and thought I'd save up some energy to catch him in the last 500 meters, but when we got to the spot that I thought he was going to slow down in (the last hill ) the SOB started sprinting! I tried to follow him in but didn't do so hot.

Had a glass of Infini-T halfway through, blast of water in T2.

Not have as much for breakfast? I don't know . . . I've done like three major bricks since my last tri, I thought I was doing pretty good in this transition-to-run thing. What the hell was this? Too much food? Not enough food? Not enough water?

wandered, ate PBJ, brooded about doing poorly


I just don't know -- not much experience riding on a wet road, and I had a weird issue with my stomach on the run. Not well rested enough?


HFP rocks, I like them a bunch. They had lots and lots of volunteers at this race, in contrast with the woefully understaffed Buckeye Lake Tri/Du. One suggestion: instead of telling us that our wave will go off at 8:06AM, which it never does, just tell us that we're in wave 1 and the waves will start shortly after 8. Coming nowhere close to these meticulously scheduled start times just makes the organiazers look unnecessarily unorganized.