Over The Mountain Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

I've only been swimming once in the last couple of weeks, so this is probably a pretty good result. My arms were tired. :(

And T1 is where I wish my gels were. Sadly, they were in a pack somewhere and it wasn't until I got to the swim start that I realized this. (This was a point to point race, so once I got to the swim start I was a long way from either transition (there are two in different places) so there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.) At least I opted to put gatorade on the bike. I don't typically do that. That meant I had ~20oz of g'ade to do me other than the cytomax on the run. Yippee.

As an aside, my neighbor saw that I racked my bike with shoes attached, as I typically do in shorter races where I don't have seat mounted bottles. She wants me to show her how to do a cross mount. Wow, I can do something she can't! (She's a very good age group racer who typically wins her AG, so she pretty much swims, bikes and runs faster than me on a consistent basis).
So at T1 I cross the mount line and hop on. Uh oh. My left pedal was forward, not my right. I ALWAYS start with my right pedal forward. It's one manifestation of my OCD. I had might as well been trying to ride my bike backwards. I was totally lost on what to do. I HAVE to flip my right shoe over, move the pedal to 6 o'clock and then flip my left shoe over. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK THE OTHER WAY! I think I got my left shoe flipped and then tried to do a full pedal (which didn't quite work) to get my right pedal forward. The heel hit the ground and popped back up, but at least I didn't dump it. I began to lose momentum and slow to a crawl. I was 100% focused on my right foot flipping my shoe over and then for no apparent reason, grabbed hard on the front brake thus killing what little momentum I had so I had to stop, flip the pedal over (which I had to do "backwards" since my right leg was at 6 o'clock now), mount and then start to actually pedal and put my shoes on. What I really expected was to go ass over tea kettle and wind up on the floor with what little nutrition I still had dumped all over me leaving me sticky, thirsty and on the verge of bonking in the first 10 miles of the race. But somehow I didn't. On the plus side, this was at T1 and pretty much no one at all was at T1 since it's a point to point race, so the only people who saw me may have been the guys behind me, but they were probably otherwise occupied.
Now, the pedals may have flipped on me during the run to the mount line, but that's hard to do, so that probably wasn't the problem. I am usually very good about making sure my right pedal is forward, but I guess I was occupied with other things this morning. I told my neighbor that my mount was a disaster so she may decline my assistance to help her. I know I would.

It's a mostly rolling course with one steep hill towards the end. I watched a guy do that climb in his big ring which was funny. I was standing in a 34/23. This is fractionally easier than bandit's challenge I think, but it's very very close.
I got caught behind some cars at one point and eventually had to come to a stop while they figured out their turn (without a signal). Other than that it's a nice bike, especially through the parks (one natl, two state).

If I had thought about it, I could have taken an extra 10 seconds and run over to my bag and grabbed a gel or two. Alas, thinking is not something I do well.

This was my third run since white lake half, and one of those runs was a 5k in a sprint tri. I'm lucky I held out as well as I did. Knees did well. Calves did well. Maybe I should give this running thing a shot again.

Get a new top for non-wetsuit races. I have one that is great on the bike and run, but it's a little too loose without a wetsuit holding it down. The one I have that's tight chafes the hell out of me. I took it off around mile 2 and carried it with me. While I'm sure my wife would tell me that's sexy, in my heart of hearts I know that other people laugh and point when I look away. I mean really, people should not be subjected to this, especially the poor folks who happen to live on the run course.

Eat and drink as much as possible. At least 10 cookies. I knew my blood sugar had to be on the floor and was a little surprised I didn't bonk on the run. I wish they had donuts at the race. That would have really hit the spot.


I dislike the point to point nature of this race. The logistics are a pain and it means you can't start until 8. Even leaving the house at 5 did not leave us with much time to dilly dally, though getting a little bit lost probably didn't help. I dislike the run, but I guess that "share a sidewalk both ways" is not all that different from MAP or WLH. I'm disinclined to do this race again because it's a pain being P2P, but at the same time, it's a good distance relatively close to home so that's a big point for the race. We'll see next year.