Seven Springs Rotary's Longleaf Triathlon - International Distance - TriathlonOlympic

This is a weird race. It's seeded by number. 15 seconds between starts. I had a fairly good swim. I think I made the wrong decision about wearing the wetsuit though. The water was plenty warm enough not to wear one. I think it helped me stay afloat and probably made me just a bit faster, but I think that it affected my breathing cuz it's tight. Plus it was hard to move my arms to swim. Shoulders are sore because of it.

About 1000 meters in, some guy coming back had crossed the midline, was off course and slammed into me. Smacked me right in the face. My goggles went right into my eye sockets. Swedes are NOT comfortable when they're being slammed into your skull. OUCH!! But other than that, the swim went well. No gators.

Not wear the wetsuit.

This T1 included a quarter mile run to the transition area. It was a good 2 minute run from the "lake" to the TA which made my T1 time pretty long. Once in TA though, I was in the first rack closest to the exit, so at least I didn't have far to run to get out onto the bike course.

Nothing...good T1.

OK so the first 5 or 6 miles were hella windy. I had trouble making 18mph at some points. But once into Starkey park, the tress blocked the wind so I was able to keep up a good 19+. 20 and 21 in some spots, but settled at about 19, wasn't feeling really strong on the bike. My back started hurting me at about 10 miles. So I took it easy so it wouldn't kill me. The course got pretty narrow for a while and was really shady so it made me nervous. Wind returned about a mile from the turnaround where the land was flat again. But when I turned around, I was instantly at 23's and 24's for a while! Back inside the park again, and I was back to 19's and 20's with no wind. Once we got out of the park, the wind had seemed to die down so I didn't get the tailwind helping me out, but I managed to keep a 20 for the last two miles. Not a great bike, but definitely better than HOT...no hella hills, no rough pavement. I was last in my AG on the bike, but I still was satisfied with the time being 7 minutes better than my last Oly bike.

Go faster.

Just the usual T2.

Nothing.

I had a GREAT 10K!!! I ran this portion of the race in the same amount of time that I did my standalone Midnight 10K on July 4th! I never felt tired, never felt like I wished the finish line was closer, I had an awesome run. At about mile 2 (and again at a little after mile 3) we ran over a small bridge. Someone had taped a page from a naughty magazine to the wall on the bridge. I ran by and said to myself, "Wow! Boobies!" I wonder if that was done for the race, or just someone being silly.

Anyway, I was rounding a corner about a half mile from the finish and some kid says to me..."only 10 minutes to go". And I was like "What? For a half mile???" And I ran by. Sheesh.

Jess and Terri met me near the finish line and Jess screamed out some Derka Derka stuff and we laughed as I sprinted to the finish line.

Nothing. Best Oly 10K yet!

Drank some water, sat down, chatted. I wasn't spent like at HOT, I was thinking maybe I just didn't go hard enough...but I'm sure it was the weather that was a big factor too. It was 75 degrees at finish time with hardly any humidity, as opposed to HOT that was 90 degrees with at least 60% humidity.


My back. Must get bike fit done!!!


They admittedly had trouble with their timing equipment. I trust my watch. All the times in this RR are per my watch splits, not the race timing. Officially my time was 2:42:52 which is 52 seconds slower than my Oly PR...but by my watch this race is more than 2 minutes better than my PR. With all the problems they were having, I am not gonna trust their timing completely. UGH. But still, it was a fun time, a great race, really pretty venue, and I was satisfied with my performance. I'll do the sprint here next year.