Cranberry Country - TriathlonOlympic

Couldn't be happier with my swim! Everything jut seemed to click today. Started to right and back of the pack. Was in the 2nd wave. Started easy and quicly settled in to a nice pace. Quite a bit of jostling the first 200 yards but didn't seem to disrupt me as in past races. Was able to follow people's feet, pass when needed to avoid hitting feet too often. My navigation today was on. In my previous 2 tris I found I had trouble holding without looking up every 3-4 strokes. Today I seemed to be able to hold my line while others were criss crossing in front of me. No problems sighting. Even able to draft for good stretches (although from the feel of people behind me hitting my feet occasionally I did my share of pulling as well).


Not a thing. For my first OWS of this distance I'm more than happy with my performance.

Fairly long run from swim to transition. Coming out of water you have to go up steep hill to get to the flat section where the transition is located. My bike was 1 rack from the closest end of transition, where the bike in/out was. Unfortunately the entrance to T1 was at the other end. Ran past bike, in transition, run back to bike rack. At least I didn't have to run with my bike through transtion. Unlike past races where I struggled with getting wetsuit over heels today the wetsuit came off easily. Used lots Bodyglide on ankles, tops of feet and today on the outside of the wetsuit down on the lower leg area. (don't recall who suggested this in one of their posts but thanks for the tip). Socks on, shoes on, sunglasses and helmet on and away I went.

Nothing. Thought transition went exactly as I had planned for

First ride ever with a 20 mph average pace!!!! Been trying to hit this barrier all year.

Felt great on bike. Held back a little in anticipation of the run distance. At my last sprint tri I had trouble with heat and hydration and was forced to walk good chunks of run. Didn't want this to happen today.

10 minutes into bike took first Powergel-Strawberry Bananna. Only real mistake of the day was bringing 2 bottles of Powerbar Performance Drink and no water. Drank the sports drink to wash the gel down and continued to hydrate during ride. At ~8 miles started to feel stomache cramping up and wished I had the water. Fortunately, at bottle exchange was able to pick up a water which I then proceed to consume over rest of the ride. Over the next 20-30 minutes of consuming water stomache began to settle down. Took another gel ~10 minutes from completing bike segment to set myself up for the run.

Hadn't planned on using the bottle exchange and wished I had a cheap bottle to lose at the exchange. Hated to part with one of my better bottles.

Bring 1 bottle sports drink and 1 bottle water (for the gel).

Now here's the opposite of T1. My rack is next to the bike in / bike out. Everything went very smooth and fairly quick. Took a quick drink of water to help dilute any remaing gel. Run exit at other end of transition so now it's time to run through transition, back up the exit chute and out onto the course.

Continue to practice T-2 so everything becomes that much quicker.

Plan was to settle into a pace that I felt I could sustain for the entire 6.2 miles. Legs felt good coming off bike. The transition runs I've been doing in training are paying off.

Looking at the results and knowing my running history I'm extremely pleased with my 8:45 pace

Speed work over winter. I've never been a particularly fast runner although since I started doing tri's I'm finding I'm running faster than ever.

lots of water, sports drink, stretching. Waited for my training partner to finish.


Nothing. Being my first olympic had set at time goal of 2:45. Performed better than hoped on each segment and beat my time goal.


Great race! Really enjoyed the day. Perfect conditions, race for first olympic. Already have this one in next year's plan.

Wished I would've had more time afterward to meet all the BTers there. My kids who had been troupers this weekend in traveling to support dad were itching to get back home and play.