Grand Rapids Triathlon - Sprint Course - Triathlon

Very disappointed in my swim. I should be a full minute faster. I just haven't felt fast in the water this entire year since I started working it again back in late January. I probably could've pushed a little harder here, but that wasn't my problem in general. I swam okay for what I have been doing, it just should be faster. There are other former swimmers I know who I should be on par with, and I just haven't been this year.

Nothing on race day, but I need to go work on my stroke. I feel like I've lost my feel for the water am just not getting anything out of my pull.

GR Tri transitions suck. I am normally great at transitions, but struggled a little here today. I didn't use the wetsuit strippers, as I am superstitious about them - the only time I used them was 2 years ago in Grand Rapids, and about 50 yards later as I was running, I strained a calf muscle, so that cost me time, especially considering I struggled to get the wetsuit off my left ankle for some reason. This was probably worth 25 seconds, more if I used the strippers.

Then I got caught behind a slower moving athlete as I was running out of transition. The alley was too narrow for me to get by him, so I had to slow down to not run into him. Frustrating, as the transition is very long, about .15 miles I believe.

Use the westuit strippers.

I felt pretty good on the bike after about the first 5 minutes or so. Looking at my HR graph, there was a noticeable drop right about that point, and I felt good from there on. It was nice that there were some waves out in front of me, which meant that I always had people in front of me to focus on catching and passing. Roads were a little wet, and some puddles had to be avoided, but not bad at all. In retrospect from how I was feeling and looking at my HR graph, I think I had a lot more to give here, but since I hadn't been riding the course this year (haven't been to Ada Time Trials yet), I didn't quite have my bearings about me. Might've been a little off due to wet roads too, but that's not an excuse for effort.

Push a little harder...legs could've handled it. Get out to Monday night time trials, haven't done enough hard biking this spring/summer.

Much better than T1. I did have to slow down noticeably a few times running against the outbound Olympic traffic to avoid crashes which cost a few seconds, but not much. Struggled with the shoes just a little bit, as I had done a poor job getting them covered by a trash bag and they were more soaked than I expected...and I had forgot to put on my race laces as these are shoes I have never raced a tri in before. Ooops. Finally, I almost went the wrong way out of transition, which was probably more my fault than anyone else's but I just didn't see a volunteer pointing which way to go and I accidentally started to follow a volunteer who was showing the MyTeamTriumph guys where to go. Wasn't a big mistake, only a couple of seconds.

Remember to put on race laces. Protect shoes better in case of rain. Run the right direction to get out of transition - I've done this race every year!

I'm still improving here, but this is where the pack gets me back. Too many guys just zip past me in the last mile or so. I ran okay, and did negative split it - 8:07, 8:09, 7:55, 0:32, but it could've been better. I probably could've pushed through that last mile a little harder and come home with a 7:30 or so. Cadence is too low right now. Need to figure out why that is down a little bit and correct.

Unfortunately, my orthotic was a little off due to being wet and I could feel it rubbing wrong on my foot, so I was trying to adjust it every 6th stride or so for a while by just kicking my foot out a little bit. It didn't really work, but it was driving me nuts so I had to try. It didn't blister, which I was surprised about. I'll take this run on a positive note, but it could've been better.

Push a little harder, take the suffering. Maybe take one cup of water, since I always avoid them in 5Ks as I don't want to lose my breath while drinking.

Walked and drank water to cool off, grabbed one slice of pizza, talked to a couple of friends, and bolted pretty quick.


Not much besides myself. Since it was my first race of the year, I maybe didn't push it as hard as I could, and didn't embrace the suffering to the point I am capable of. A few little mistakes cost me time here and there as well.



Only small complaints about this race: need more options for packet pickup, transitions are the worst of any race I've ever been to but I don't know that they have any real way to fix that, and the weather sucked, but that wasn't their fault.