Grand Rapids Triathlon - Olympic Course - Triathlon

This is my first race since a panic attack in the water at the end of last year and the first 200m did not start out well. I was able to get in the water for a few minutes before our wave start, submerge myself, etc so I thought I was ready... this turned out to not be the case. The contact didn't bother me as much as I expected, but once again I experienced the panicky feeling in my chest and had a hard time breathing. It felt like my wetsuit was a boa constrictor and it was trying to squeeze the life out of me (I'm claustorphobic). It also doesn't help that I don't like open water. A neighbor kid showed me Jaws when I was 7 or 8 and I haven't been a fan of lakes since then. A shark tried to grab me a couple of times (aka, a stick... keep in mind, it's a river swim), but I was able to fight the shark (stick) off with some sweet ninja moves and a minimal amount of panic. It also helped that I talked to a teammate before we started and she mentioned how much she hates the first 200-300m. I kept reminding myself that I wasn't alone in this and that I just needed to keep going until my watch beeped (500m) and then I could reevaluate. Fortunately things calmed down and I went on to have a fantastic swim. My goal was 34 minutes with a stretch of 30, so 29:12 was outstanding. I believe I was actually out of the water in 28 and change. One note, most people lined up left of the sighting buoys, which didn't make sense to me as you need to swim a dog leg to hit the turn buoy. If you line up to the right it's almost a straight shot to the turn buoy and I think it cut some time, unless you are in my age group... then you should go as wide as possible. I breath to one side and was worried about having an uneven stroke, but after looking at my Garmin data for the swim I couldn't be happier. It was a nice straight line and only about 40m long.

Realize that the first 200m sucks and that you have to accept that. Hopefully this will improve with more experience.

Wetsuit strippers are awesome.

I was 7th in my age group for T1 so I must have done all right, though it felt slow. At some point I need to learn how to do a flying mount, but today was not the day.

My goal was to keep my heart rate in the 135-140 range but I couldn't get it to settle down, which worried me after about 5 miles. Eventually I decided to go by perceived exertion since this was my first Olympic race and I really had no idea what I was doing and the 135-140 range was arbitrary to begin with. I seemed to settle into the 145-150 range (averaged 149) and went with that. The first half felt too easy but I forced myself to stay disciplined and not cook the bike. My goal was to average 19-20 mph so 20.3 was good enough for me given the conditions. It was depressing being passed so often on the bike but it must mean I had a good swim. I also noticed that most of the people passing me had full carbon bikes and all the toys that go with that. I had one bottle of Infinit Go Far on the bike and it worked great. I did almost fall getting off the bike, mainly b/c I had never tried jumping off a moving bike. At the end of the race on a rainy day is not a good place to start.

Start picking at the low hanging fruit like aero helmet, drink system in the aero bars, etc. to lower my time with a minimal effort. I've been focused on my run for the past year and my bike training has been spotty at best so I was happy with these results but expect more next year after another season of training.

This was slower than I would have liked but someone bumped the trash bag that was covering my running shoes so my socks were soaked and I had a hard time getting them on.

Find a better way to ensure my socks and shoes stay dry.

I started this crazy journey by taking up running about a year ago. I added the bike and swim as a way to stay in shape when injured, but the run has been my focus for the past year and it's starting to pay off. I've seen huge improvements in the past year and set PR's virtually every race. My Olympic triathlon 10k time was 5 minutes faster than an open 10k late last summer. I didn't feel like running once I hopped off the bike (glad I didn't upgrade to the half!) but some teammates were out cheering and that helped motivate me. I fell into a reasonably comfortable pace and was surprised to see that it was around 8:30 and that I actually had to pull myself back. I finished the run portion in just under 55 minutes and every mile was faster than a 9 min pace (my half marathon pace), which was my stretch goal.

I still need to learn to suffer more on the run. After looking at my heart rate data from the race I think I could have gone faster and believe it's a mental thing, some of which goes back to my initial training which was all slow.

Grabbed a banana and a cookie and walked back to transition to gather my things. It was a 15 minute walk back to the car with a friend so that helped me stay loose.


My overall engine still needs to improve in all three sports, but that will come with time. I couldn't be happier with the results and adding toys as I go forward (aero helmet, power meter, etc) will only serve to lower my time further. I should limit the post race beers and bad food as I gained 4 pounds overnight!


Overall a great race that's close to home with lots of friends and teammates. We had a blast despite the weather. The organizers do a wonderful job and there are plenty of volunteers, though they can always use more. I spent a few hours the day before setting up transition and think the banked karma helped me on race day!