Pumpkinman - TriathlonSprint

It was cloudy at first, that usual morning cloudiness where the sun eventually breaks through and the coulds go away.

The swim was done in two waves, both a mass start. M/F 0-34 and M/F 35+. I started all the way on the right closer to the front of the pack, as i was planning on pushing myself throughout the swim.

The water was BEAUTIFUL! could not have asked for a better temperature (probably around 70) and so clear. You knew you could get up and start walking in when you could see the bottom. It was great. I love lake swims!!

Figure out why the hell no matter how far over to the right I start, I still swim to the left, even with all my sighting...I was good on the way out and across to the 2nd buoy but on the way in, i was all the way off to the left. Jeff has it on video, so I am curious to see just how far off I was. :) All in, though I felt fine.

T1 was set up as a first come first serve free for all, so my bike was all the way at the bottom of a slight incline closer to the water, rather than at the top of the "hill" so that I had to run with my bike much further. But whatever, no biggie. No problems finding it either, which is nice.

I think I took slightly longer because this wasn't a point to point race, so I had to shove all of my swim stuff into a bag, so that took a few extra seconds.

Nothing - all was good.

The sun eventually came out on the latter part of the course. I knew this would be a relatively hilly course (the last 6+ miles) but it's only 12.4 miles and I trained for 3x that amount, although not all on hills, so I knew I'd be able to get through it at the very least.

My plan for the entire race was the push myself as much as possible, so I did that on the bike course as much as I reasonably could. The hills were killer cos it was really just subtle, but you felt it. I was doing anywhere from 5-7 or 8mph on the hills with a 60-65 cadence in the hardest parts. And i was clearly not alone. :)

It's all good - I'm fine with my results. I know what I need to do and work on this year. It was tough and I'm glad I downgraded to the sprint.

More time in the saddle and more time conquering hills.

This was set up according to number and my rack was on a corner with street signs, so it was easy to find. No issues racking the bike or getting stuff off.

Get speed laces.

stopped at the water station at mile 1 and 2 (same station). needed that first sip and it helped energize me. the second one helped too. I started the run with super tight hamstrings - the hills really got my hammies and glutes. ouchie! small steps, and got into my groove. wouldn't let myself stop to walk at any other time. kept telling myself "you were running 6-8 before your leg started hurting you - don't be silly about needing to walk - you don't need to! just get a sip of water and move on." pushed it at the end to the finish line. :)

need to get back into running - no pain in my leg/groin so I'll have to ease back into it. Get back into the speed work/track workouts, too.

stretched. had a few orange sections. stretched some more. my hammies/glutes were super tight from those hills!!


hills


The best finishers medal!

I'm not down with having two different transition areas. The bags with the swim stuff had to be collected and trekked over. because T1 was not set up in number order, it took a long time to sort all the bags. It was not horrible, just an inconvenience. I would certainly do this race again. It was well orgainzed, good communication leading up to the event itself and very easy changing from the OD to the sprint - no issues.