Lake Waconia Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This is where the day's errors began. I got in the water to warm up and stood in the shallows chatting with a few guys to keep cool in my wetsuit. Turns out that one of these guys was Benihana and I didn't even know it! Somehow, I lost count of the waves and wasn't paying enough attention and managed to miss my f*cking wave!!! It would have helped if they had more than two colors of swim caps (purple for guys, green for ladies) but this was just pure stupidity on my part. So, I go to the start line and managed to chat with a USAT official who was going to inform the timing people of my gaffe.

So now I was lined up with the young bucks, M29 and under. There was lots of bumping and grinding in the first 200m but I did a good job of staying my ground, keeping my stroke steady and even, and finding clear water. The rest of the swim was pretty uneventful and I managed to draft for a little bit but this person ended up being a pretty bad navigator so I had to leave him behind. I didn't once break my rhythm and felt good the whole way through. I also was doing well enough to focus on some technique stuff . I noticed that I was falling back into some of the things my coach yells at me about and tried to correct them. FUN!

The concensus was that the course was a little bit long. I had to have been considering the top male who is a VERY fast swimmer came out in a little under 12 minutes.

Not miss my wave. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I finished the swim feeling good but, as usual, the second I get out of the water and start running to the bike, I'm totally redlined. I feel like I'm sprinting when I'm barely trotting. So, of course, my thinking and judgement are totally impaired and it takes a little longer to do everything. I managed to get the suit off pretty cleanly but dropped my shades and e-lytes container (gotta get a bento box) when I picked up my helmet. Got running with the bike and hit the mount line running and hopped up onto the bike. Even got a shout out from the announcer: "a successful flying mount being demonstrated by number 379". Here's where another mistake comes in: I FORGOT TO OPEN THE STRAPS ON MY SHOES!!! I have these fancy new tri shoes and I don't even remember to freakin' set them up right. I reach down and get the right shoe open and my foot in and manaage to cramp up my shoulder. Take a few seconds to stretch that while pedaling. Reach down and get my left shoe open and my foot in and I'm off. The problem is that I'm still redlined. All the commotion has my heart going a million miles an hour. I think this really hurt me on the bike, too.

Open up the straps on my stupid shoes. Figure out how to keep my HR in a reasonable range when I get out of the water. Be more systematic about my process in transition.

After the shoe snafu, I had a hard time getting settled in. Still by the halfway point, my goal of crushing the bike was in reach. I wanted to come in somewhere between 19 and 20 mph and thought this was attainable. At mile 10, I looked at my time and it was just a tad over 30 minutes. Somehow the second half of the course crushed me as my avg. for the last half was about 17.5 mph. I think I let my effort level go down a notch after seeing the first half speed and thinking, at least subconsciously, that I couldn't keep up that kind of pace. Another key mistake came somewhere in the middle of the bike and that was forgetting to take my Endurolytes. I was gonna pay for this, that's for sure.

All in all, this was a really mixed bag bike for me. It was hard to settle into any rhythm at any point on the course. There were spots where I was feeling great and just crushin' it and spots where I was getting killed. 23 mph up one hill, 12 mph up the next. WTF?!?!

If there weren't a bunch of hills in the first few miles, I might have backed off after the transition mayhem and tried to get my body to settle down a little. Otherwise, I guess try to keep up the pace in the second half.

This was a long way to run with the bike. If the course is laid out the same way next year, I know where I'm going to rack my bike. Again, I was just not thinking enough. I didn't make mistakes but I also didn't do anything with much urgency.

Choose a better rack spot. Get it done and get it done more quickly.

As soon as I got my run shoes on, I knew this was going to be a tough run. I get out of transition and my legs are feeling fried and pretty quickly, I start to get crampy - especially in my upper abs. Its a hilly run course and the uphill starts immediately out of transition. The tired legs, cramps and hills were a pretty killer combo for me. The first two miles were pretty much just me gutting it out as much as I could. As I hit the turnaround, I think, "mother#$%&er! I forgot to take my endurolytes". Almost as soon as I washed those down, the cramps subsided and I was able to start pushing the pace. The second half was decidely better than the first so I felt good about that. I had just enough left to kick it down into the finish.

Take my freakin' e-lytes. I think if I'd done that, I'm might've been able to get to the sub-9's that I was hoping for.

Had some water, cheered in Steve (hikergerb), stretched a little, chatted with Ben (benihana) who is very, very fast! Ogled his gear. Didn't win the ZIPPs in the giveaway.


Mistakes. Stupid mistakes. Enough mental toughness to ignore the cramps and just run. One of these days I'm gonna run like a bat outta hell and worry about the consequences later.


Great race. Challenging bike course and hilly run course. Very, very well run. They need to serve beer at the finish...