Philadelphia Triathlon in Fairmount Park - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

Positioned myself right behind the front row in about the middle of the wave. Got swimming OK off the start after only a couple minutes of bumping. Found myself a little to the left of a group from my wave, but there were a couple people out with me around my pace. Tried to settle onto some feet, but either I kept zig-zagging too much trying to line myself up or they were zig-zagging. Felt like I was wasting energy worrying about it, so I just moved to their side even though I lost much of the draft benefit this way.

After 1000m we passed under a bridge. At this point, it appeared to me that the buoy line curved with the river from right to left. But you could take a straight line right to the turn buoy. So that's what I did. Though I seemed to be the only one and I'm still not sure if this was the right call or not--think it saved ground, but certainly gave up any draft.

Overall, the swim felt solid but not particularly strong or fast. The lack of a good warm-up may have made a difference here.

Do a better job getting out quickly on the start and staying with some good feet. Maybe try a longer warm-up even with the long down-time before my wave started.

Took my wetsuit off right out of the water. Still caught on my ankles a bit, but seemed easier pulling it off than usual (when I wait until reaching my rack). Was a little slow in getting my socks on (I'll have to consider ditching these if I really want to start trimming the seconds) and even spun my helmet around wrong at first. A little sloppy, but nothing major went wrong.

Iron-out the details. Haven't done many short races so I don't spend much time worrying about a few wasted seconds in transition.

I rode the course pretty solidly. My legs felt a bit tired from the past week of training, but mostly they did what I asked of them. I think my pace/effort was pretty consistent throughout. And I was "zoned in" for this race more so than any other I've done. Really didn't notice much around me other than bikes in my way that I had to negotiate and my family at the end of each lap.

Probably drank only 24oz or so, which is light for me but the conditions were pretty good too. Also took most of 2 gels which I had watered down in a flask so I wouldn't have to worry about wrappers.

On fresher legs, I could have pushed harder on the pedals but tactically felt I executed pretty well.

Came to full stop at the dismount and ran in my shoes. Got my stuff quickly, but still felt like I was standing around at my rack a little bit trying to make sure I hadn't forgotten something.

This stuff should all by "auto-pilot" so that I can just keep moving and think about running.

Felt good throughout this run. Walked through aid station during mile 2 & 4 to get down a cup of Gatorade each time. Had legs for a kick in last 1/4mi, so I went for it. There was 1 guy ahead of me by maybe 100 yards and I ran him down near the finish. Felt a little bad about that since I didn't even have any idea if he was in my AG, but honestly I was just so happy to have a finishing kick I didn't really think about it at the time.

Think I could have pushed a little harder throughout the run.

Walked back to my family (who I heard but didn't see in my final sprint) and waited to cheer in others (LaurenSU02, my sister, her boyfriend and my friend Brian). Then grabbed some food and hung out for awhile before hiking up the hill to the car and heading home.


Focus is IMLP right now, so the only thing I did to "taper" was to cut back my Sat ride to 3hrs. Fully rested, I'd be getting close to placing in my AG--still need some better running legs for that though.


While the bike gets a little congested (especially on the second loop), the race is very well done and it's right in Philly which is nice. And, of course, when you get weather like we had it makes everything seem better and the little "nits" fade to the background more.