Dickson Endurance Triathlon - Triathlon

Swim went great. Except when I went to reset my watch just prior to the start, it was dead. I started right on the line at the front of the wave. Sighted well, swam pretty straight, and just nailed the swim. Had the fastest swim out of everyone somehow! Kept it smooth and calm the whole time. Never red lined, and kept breathing under control. I started catching the younger wave that had a 3 min head start after teh first turn. I never saw anyone else in a blue swim cap, but I assumed I had been passed. There was one guy right behind me getting out of the water, but I had no idea I had the best swim time until I saw it online.

nothing

everything went well. About a 200m uphill run to T1 with shitty gravel all over the road. I managed to run/shuffle uphill the whole way, had the suit off to my waist by the time I got to the bike. Sat down, stripped off the suit, got shoes and helmet on and was gone. No issues.

nothing, had the 4th fastest time

Good bike. Kept it comfortably hard the whole way. The hills and wind were never-ending and tough. I kept it steady, though. Averaged 18.8 for the first lap, was at 19.0 after the 2nd lap, and ended up back at 18.8. Consistent, getting better, but still not up to the swim and run.

nothing

Timing sensors were off, so no time available. Off the bike easily enough, ran te bike to the rack, got racked easily. Shoes changed, hat and belt on, and was off, feeling good. No issues

nothing

Run went great. Felt good off the bike. Managed the opening uphill mile, and just kept it going. I liked the mix of up and downhills, which allowed me to stretch the legs periodically which helped. Speed walked up the 2 big hills at mile 3 and 8, but other than that, I pushed it consistently and kept it just below the red line. Unfortunately, without a watch, I don't really know how steady it was or what my splits were. I wasn't focused on a specific pace, though, and just ran it by feel, and it apparetnly worked well. Finished strong, had plenty left in hte tank, too. This was as good as I've felt running as I have in a long time. It was certainly better than the last race a couple of weeks ago.

not a thing

grabbed a bottle of water and packed up. Could've have kept running I was feeling so good.


hills on the bike


I had done this race once before, and several other races put on by Endurance Sports Management, and they have always been great. Today, however was a different story. Transition area parking lot was terrible, with huge potholes, terrible pavement and loose gravel everywhere. They did warn us about this, but they could've at least swept the gravel. Also, on the long run up from the lake to T1, the pavement was better but there was still gravel and twigs everywhere that should've been swept. Packet pickup was slow, I had to wait 30 min to get stuff. Race was delayed by 20 min due to the log jam at packet pick up. Bike course was not well marked. I know 2 sprint racers who missed the turn to their finish adn rode an extra 10 miles. Post race spread was nonexistent. Had to walk the 200m back down the steep hill to the almost all the way to the lake to find a table with a box of oranges, 2 bananas left, a few granola bars, and trail mix. A guy at the finish line gave me a bottle of water. Never found any pizza, beer, gatorade, or anything else.

I'm not sure what was up with Kevin and the ESM team with this one, as I've never had a bad experience at one of their races before, but there were majors issues at the race today. Luckily, I had a great day, so it didn't bother me as much as it might have if I had raced poorly.