Storm Challenge - Triathlon

Seeded myself back near the end, given my swim speeds and lack of training lately. That was problem 1, as I got caught up behind a few people. After the first turn, I finally got past them and was in open water for the most part from then on.

Oh, the list is long. Seed better, swim better, train more, etc. But, given where I am right now, this is only a bit slower than I expected.

Transition was soaked from rain the night before. So, I opted for shoes since I am a sock wearing rider, in transition(I didn't want soaked socks in my bike shoes). This was issue 2, as I have been working on a rolling mount. I could have used those additional 3 seconds ;)

Actually, I am quite happy with this, as I was through the sunglasses/helmet/socks/shoes pretty quickly.

Shoes on bike for the rolling mount. Don't question myself at the last minute and begin changing the setup.

I mounted quickly, got up to speed on the inner loop and found that I was closely behind a Cervelo P2 which looked like it was ridden by a guy of my speed. I dropped a bit behind him and settled in against the wind. Well, "settled in" is generous, given the amount of speeding up and slowing down that was done for traffic and turns and such. I jumped in front of him in lap 2, then he passed me again near the end of the lap. I knew that lap 3 would be it, and I could use the wind on the second half of the loop to my advantage. I got a bit screwed up behind some traffic at the far end of the lake loop. So, I came out of there with the hammer down, passed the pack of 4 that was holding me up, passed the Cervelo, and took what the wind was giving me as we headed back towards transition. This is the part where I knew that my bike handling skills were coming in handy as the road weaved a bit and made two or three curves. The others were out of aero for much of this on the previous laps, so I knew I had an advantage here. I stayed low on the bars and kept steady on the pedals. Through the last course turn in aero, over the 2 bridges and finally sat up as I made the turn into the Inner Loop to transition. I made the final turn, slid my feet out of my shoes and rolled in for my rolling dismount. Ran into transition and noted that there were not too many bikes. No doubt I made up time on the bike. I would pay later for this.

The real issue with the course is that there were multiple abilities of rider on it. I am very comfortable on the bike and found myself working way too hard in traffic to insure I was safe. Given the fact that there were laps, I wasn't going to ever be in a spot to ride in my own space for very long.

Helmet off as I moved through transition, bobbled on racking my bike a bit. Socks were now soaked from the water. Slid them into my Noosa's, grabbed my visor and belt and headed out.

Not bobble the bike? Really, nothing here was bad.

As I came out of transition, I knew it was getting warmer. I hadn't hit the water on the bike enough, so I paused at the station there, grabbed a cup, splashed myself, splashed my throat and headed out. Warm is an understatement. Issue 3 was the pace of the bike, especially the ending pace combined with the lack of water. It killed me, and I knew it. I slowed to a snail's pace and just did the best I could. I saw Kimmi before the end of the bridge. She was cheering her fool head off. I hit the hill(?), paused for water, found the path and headed back that way. Continued trudging along to the end. Found nothing left in the tank at the end and lost a sprint finish to a 15-19 year old.

Bric train more. Not overcook the bike. Swim train to set myself up better at the beginning. The list is nearly endless.

Wander around and go to the food line for an orange and banana.


Weight. Lack of training in the water. A myriad of issues, too numerous to enumerate :)


I am around where I thought I would be at this point. Swim and bric training will be upped a bit, as will intensity of the run and bike where appropriate. The bike is in a good place, but the rest can use attention. And that is always the case, something could always use more attention. The next day I noticed that I was not nearly in the pain I had been in for previous races. Aches were minimal. Obviously, I didn't push enough. That is another good sign, given that this race was a measuring stick for later races.