St. Louis Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

So I generally breathe to my right side. However, the course was laid out so all the bouys were on my left. This led to some bad swim lines for me as I would occasionally drift a little. However, the lake was a sheet of glass and it was still a great place to swim.
I didn't put in nearly the amount of training that I should have (basically, I haven't swam at all since New Orleans 70.3) and I think that showed as I struggled a bit during the first 200 and my overall swim time was not nearly what I am used to doing. However, it still wasn't bad and I was one of the first in my age group out of the water

Stop being lazy and get in the pool!

It was a long run from the water to my bike and because of the conditions of the parking lot, I didn't run to my bike. It was also a long run out of transition to the bike mount line. I would hope this can change for next year

I might have shaved a little time had I run to my bike, but the parking lot wasn't very kind to my feet. Otherwise, I have no complaints about my transition. I don't think I'll ever be one of those guys that can get his shoes on while riding...

The bottoms are very flat, but often windy, so it can sometimes be a painful place to ride. However, today the Triathlon Gods smiled on us and it was completely calm. Based on this, I wanted to really hammer the bike and see what I could do.

The first loop was awesome! Since my swim wave was the third into the water, the bike course started out fairly empty with lots of road space for easy passing. However, as I finished the first loop, I ran into both late wave Oly's and the Sprinters coming out of the park. This caused a close call as 3 sprint tri folk were riding abreast and took the turn very wide. I yelled at the top of my lungs to warn them of my approach and then had to weave into the lane of traffic that was still open to cars to avoid a collision. There were some other spots during the second loop were it was somewhat difficult to pass because of the narrow road and people riding abreast of each other. I do think this is common at the shorter distance events, so I can't really complain.


Despite a great day on the bike, I still am trying to work hard to get faster.

Nothing really to say here. I ran into the transition (again a long chute from bike dismount into the transition) and did a quick shoe change. Dropped my helmet, put on my bib, grabbed a water bottle and off to the races.

nothing

The triathlon run has become quite a challenge for me lately and I wasn't sure what today would bring. My goal was to keep the legs moving and try to keep it under 9:00 miles (no walking). Running along the path it was great to see all the other runners and also enjoy the beautiful park. After the first mile, I found some discouragement because I saw so many runners headed back in. Then at 1.5, I realized that what I was seeing was the sprint folk who had hit their turn and headed back in.
This provided encouragement and I kept pushing forward. I saw tons of club members and other people I knew on the course. This also provided a lot of motivation, because no way was I going to stop with all those people there....
After I made the turn, I saw my friend not too far behind me. He yelled, "I'm coming for ya!"
Again, this provided all the motivation I needed not to slow down or give in to the little demons on my shoulders that kept saying to stop.
Making the turn for the final half mile, it was a straight shot to the finish. There were so many people at the finish yelling and cheering and it really gave me that final surge of adrenaline to push as hard as possible for that finish line!
Afterwards, my buddy came over and told me that he pushed as hard as he could to try and catch me and thanked me for his new PR!
What a great day!

Probably need to put some bricks back into my training routine, but otherwise I was very happy with my run today.

Banana, water, beer, burger!


need to be more dedicated to my training


Let me say, I loved this race. The conditions lent themselves to the fastest course I've ever done. I will also say this has the potential to be highly variable as the bottoms are usually pretty windy. Also, because it's St. Louis in late May, it could have been hotter. However, I would definitely come back next year.
There were some challenges, but it was a first time event so this is to be expected. Packet pickup was very disorganized and this led to long lines at check-in (swag was awesome though). And there were apparently traffic challenges that led to a 20 minutes delay in start time. This is more on the participants than the event though. It was held in a park that's only accessible by one road. If you waited until late to try and come down, that's your own fault.
Finally, I didn't get my pint glass because the line for that and the free glass of beer was ridiculously long. I decided that I didn't need a glass that bad and just grabbed a beer at my tri club's tent.