Lake Mills Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

At the swim start I usually hang out in the back on the outside of the pack, but this time I toed the line right at the front. After the gun went off I walked out, found a whole and started to swim. There were some zig-zaggers in front of me that I hit a couple of times, but nothing out of the ordinary. I swam the whole thing pretty straight and had really good sighting the whole time. Breathing and stroke felt pretty good too. After the last turn I was able to get on the toes of someone and draft for a while, but they slowed down and I passed them. I came out of the water somewhere around 7:20 and hit T1 at 8:03 after the run up the beach.

Go faster?

As I was running up the beach I unzipped myself and took my goggles and cap off. Got to my area, pulled the suit down, stepped on top of it and reefed with the other legs. Suit got caught so I had to peel it off my foot. Repeat with other leg. Bike shoes on, sunglasses on, helmet clipped, unracked my bike and took off running through T2. As I crossed the mats I jumped over my bike, clipped in and took off.

Cut about 2 inches off the bottom of my wetsuit so it won't get stuck on my heels.

Coming out of T2, I hopped on my bike, clipped in and got up to speed pretty quick. Got up the hill and took off down the country roads. My HRM wasnt picking up my HR so I had to do this one RPE. I rode pretty hard, but not enough so that Id blow up. Legs were feeling good so I started hammering it out. A few miles in I see a white triangle on the back of a pair of shorts..could it be a fellow donkey? Got closer and it turned out to be Sneaky Pete. Gave him an Eeaawww and hammered on. The roads were wet and I was a little weary of sliding out on the corners, so I took the sharper ones a little slower and came out of the saddle to open it up a little after the turn. Congestion on the course was much better this year as well drafting. I was expecting a lot of it going on but I can't really remember seeing anybody drafting out there. At the turn around the guy was yelling to slow down, of course we all ignore that guy so I kept the speed I wanted, took the turn to wide and slid off the road a little. Recovered that fine and took off. Shortly after I see Pete coming in for the turn around and Jszat a little back further. The last 5 mi or so I gave what I had and tried to really drop the hammer. I started to unstrap my shoes towards the top of the hill that goes into T2, came in really fast, volunteers yelling at me, hopped off and ran across the mat and into T2. I was hoping for a sub 40 min bike, which I was able to get with lots to spare! NOBODY passed me on the bike. Towards the end there wasn't a lot of people to be passed and the one's that I did were all in the novice wave on cruiser bikes. I worked my way up to the front pretty good. Came in 4th in AG / 12 OA for the bike split!

Stay seated on the small rollers that I stood up on and muscle up them sitting down. Seems that sitting down and hammering up those is faster than getting out and climbing.

Got into T2, ran to my spot. Im not sure how many racks there were for my wave, but its confirmed that at least 3 racks from our wave were totally empty and I didnt see any other bikes. Anyways, I found some socks that go on REALLY easy with wet feet so I slipped those on, put one on sidways so had to fix that, slid on shoes, took off helmet, grabbed race belt and started to run out. As I was running I put the belt on.

Not put my sock on sideways.

Immediately coming off the bike the legs felt REALLY good. I have a tendency to come of the bike running a little too fast and since I didn't have my footpod or HRM to gauge my speed I just ran what I could without blowing up. The first mile I came in at 5:40 and the 2nd was around 6:00. It was good to see the other donkey's on the way back on the run. I saw Pete, Jszat and Dan on the way back and gave a big ol' EEaawwwww and slap a five for some pickup. With about a mile left I started to really lay down what I had I left. I think the last mile was about 5:45 or so. I made the final turn down to the road and lit em up to the finish. NOBODY passed me on the run and there was a section of about a mile or so that I was running all alone, nobody in sight in front of me. Good enough get me 2nd in AG / 13th OA for the run split!

Nothing.

Crossed the finish line, gave my chip, got water, found Amy and went back near the finish to cheer on the other donkeys that were about to finish. After a little bit I went and got some Endurox to recover with and had some eats after that.


Wet roads may have had a small factor. Swimming is still my weakest link and needs work when compared to other people's times.


I'm VERY happy with these results. This race last year was my first triathlon. I was able to shave of 8:42 from last year's time and improve on ALL of my splits. I have nothing to complain about, but would like to improve on some small things to squeeze some extra seconds out of them. It was great seeing fellow Team Donkey members out there racing too. That just makes it so much more fun! Excellent race overall!!