Topeka Tinman Triathlon - Long Course - TriathlonLong Course

I'm pretty sure they had to have messed up the timing and/or length on this, because I do not swim this fast. This is like my sprinting pace, and I was definitely not swimming like that. In fact, I felt really slow, like I was in the very back of the pack. I did pass a lot of people at the beginning, but that's because I started too far back.
I felt like I had no technique- I could almost feel my legs sinking... and I tried to fix that, but I still didn't feel very strong out there.

I say this every time, but I need to seed myself more aggressively. It's hard to get around all the people in the back.

T1 was ok. I could've been faster, but I had to make sure I dried my feet and put lots of bodyglide on them. I've been getting blisters on my toes, and did not want to have to deal with those during the race. I saw Lisa (lisac957) when I was running out of transition and that was cool, since I was there on my own.

not have blisters

This course was a lot hillier than I expected. I mapped it out beforehand, and it didn't appear very hilly at all, so I was in for a surprise. Some of the hills were tough too! What also made it worse was that when Dave put loctite on my shifter screw the night before, he took the component off completely and somehow put it back on incorrectly, so that my three inside gears on the rear chainring were unavailable. That was weird... I couldn't figure out why they weren't working until we talked later that day. Oh well... I still did ok.

The roads were really annoying though. Only maybe 2 miles were smooth pavement. The rest of the course was rough, and there was a lot of vibration.

The best part was that I got to practice my nutrition for the HIM. I had water in my aero bottle, & a regular bottle of Gatorade Endurance. I took an Endurlyte around mile 15 and a HammerGel at mile 16 or so. I think those must have helped since I felt pretty good for the rest of the race.

nothing

Again, this could've been much faster, but I changed socks and put a ton more bodyglide on my toes. I'm glad I took the time to do that, though, because I didn't have any problems with blisters or rubbing, like I had earlier in the week.

nothing

I started off really slow - I was afraid of hurting my foot again. As the run went on and I had confidence that my foot/arch would hold out, I picked up the pace a litte. I think I probably ran the last couple miles sub-9s, but can't know for sure. I really enjoyed this course - the park is beautiful and there were lots of people out (fishing, cycling, walking dogs, etc). The run was long & it was hot out, but I was able to run the whole thing (except for stopping to retie a shoelace in the first mile). I felt really strong the whole time actually, and I think having the gel & endurlyte on the bike must have helped.

nothing

Just hung out with other BTers, had a piece of pizza and some Gatorade. Went to the awards ceremony and I was really surprised when they called out my name for 2nd place in my AG. I was not expecting that at all, but it was a nice surprise. The downer is that I found out later there was a problem with one of the timing mats and apparently some chips were not registering between a certain time period. So there is a chance that I didn't really earn that award, which really sucks. I don't know how many people would have been affected by this. The event company is going to add people's estimated times in to the official results, so we'll see what ends up happening. Still, I am really excited about my finishing time. My original goal was just to do this in under 3 hours, and I smashed that!

I also discovered that although I thought I hydrated enough, I probably didn't. I got a headache within a few hours of the race ending, and still have it now, 32 hours, two naps, one full night of sleep, and many ibuprofen later. The only thing I can think of that would be causing this is dehydration. So that is a good lesson learned before the HIM!


Everything about this race was top-notch, except for the timing chip issues, which unfortunately is a huge problem. There were a ton of volunteers and they all did a great job - the course set-up and organization was good, and I had a really fun time overall.