Kiawah Island Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Swim (.7 mile swim): Swim start was a little walk away. Maybe 10 minutes. It was actually a nice walk. They had shuttles too. At the start they had some drummer group pounding away at their drummers. I don't know what kind. Like big wooden deep base sounding. Sort of cool to have that instead of the standard stereo blasting. Water was perfect. 81 degrees. Plenty of opportunity to get a warmup in. It was a wave start. Current was left to right so director advised aiming left of buoy and let current push you towards buoy. I did that but the current was much less than I expected. I didn't feel much assistance during the swim.

My swim time: 25:23 12/27 in age group. My garmin said 23:48 so I think they timed off the timing mat outside of transition. They also had a timing mat on the beach. Overall i was pleased with my swim. I'm a slow swimmer to begin with and been dealing with some shoulder issues but have been working on my swim technique and feel like this was a fairly efficient swim for me as I feel like I paced well.

no major issues

Bike (25.1 miles) Bike was pretty well marked with volunteers at turns and police at intersections. It went through some neighborhoods and on the main parkway. It was open to traffic. There was one section where there were 5 cars backed up waiting to get past a group of cyclists. I waited behind the cars. Another impatient cyclist did not. He decided to pass the cars on the right. And there was no shoulder. Please don't do this people. Bike was mostly flat. A few inclines here and there. Nothing I would call rollers. I saw one peloton of about 20 cyclists which just seemed ridiculous but there were not officials on course so that can happen. I wore my lg p-09 helmet for the first time. Used sunglasses instead of visor. One issue I had was I was getting sweat in my eyes and took off sunglasses to wipe it away. It was a challenge getting the sunglasses back on. Biggest issue on the bike was at the end they funneled you into this very narrow multi-use path. Even a cruiser bike would be a tight fit through here if you had them coming in both directions. They had multiple volunteers telling you to slow down. I had nobody behind me when I entered the path. I slowed to probably 15mph since it was narrow and there were blind turns so it wasn't safe. Of course when I got to the dismount line at the end there were people barreling up behind me and I heard screeching of brakes. Ridiculous people. I know it's a race but don't be idiots and make things unsafe.

My bike time: 1:09:48 4/27 in age group. Happy with this time. I've been working on improving my cycling using trainerroad and this is an improvement.

nothing. happy with this race performance

dropped a gel running out and had to stop to get it.

hold gel in hand and secure later

Run (10k): Run was fine. Ended up being a little warmer than I expected but run was mostly shaded. Through some neighborhoods and some multi-use paths. My garmin says run was a little short at 5.84miles but who knows. Pacing was pretty solid for the entire run.

My run time: 47:26 3/27 in age group. Please with this time. I felt slightly overheated but I kept my pace consistent.

dropped a gel on run as I did in transition and had to stop to pick up. for short race need to just hold it in hand. my blue seventy tri top pockets are small so things don't stay in there.

Overall: I thought it was a nice race. I enjoyed the swim most of all even though it's my weakest leg. Water temp was perfect. The event was pretty well organized. Everything on the course was well marked. I only was annoyed with some overly aggressive cyclists. Overall a solid race I would recommend to others.