Elkhart Lake Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

Well, here is I suppose the glory part of the report. Our wave headed out and the water is fairly shallow for a while. Walked in and was behind a few in the wave. They made the first turn and angled it seemed more towards the buoys where I tried to take more of a direct route to the end buoy. I was totally in clear water already as the elites went out in a wave 3 minutes ahead of us so my wave was kind of off to my left while I stayed to the right but inside the boats. Nobody to draft off of so just tried to settle. Felt pretty comfortable and felt the pace was fairly good. I was sighting fairly well looking up about every 4 to 5 strokes. As I got about 70% of the way to the end buoy I kep thinking why haven't I seen any elites coming back the other way yet. I kind of lost track of where all the other Clydes were (blue caps) so I really didn't know what was going on. Then I finally come up to another swimmer and it turns out it was a white cap(elite wave) and I'm thinkin' holy crap! I just caught and elite! Turned the buoy and started back. Again, sighting fairly well. Got around the sprint buoy, made the left turn and needed to get the green buoy to my right. Came up on it and started thinking wow, my parents are here with my good friends from Green Bay (none of which have ever saw my race or even a tri race for that matter) so I better bring this in strong! Well idiot here takes the green buoy turn a bit sharp then and actually runs into it and tangles in the rope somewhat - doh! Then I swim up to the beach and stumble a bit but try to look good coming to the gate as my crew is right at the water line. I have them all high fives and was feeling good about the swim. Then the horrah begins. I looked down at my HRM and it says my HR is 192. 192!!!! What the??? I wasn't working that hard! I guess I was though. Actually standing on the beach b4 the swim I was already up in the 140s!!! So ends the best of times and what follows leads to the worst of times!

I really thought I was pacing better but I blew the wad right here! I've done this before and that's what is the real frustration! Pleasant Prairie last year Iprobably went too slow so I have to find a happy medium since as you'll see, this swim start kind of blew up the day for me. I don't even know what to rate this swim as. I guess I'll give it a good but not smart.

This transition is a long run to get to the other side and enter. Once I got to my bike it was good though. Sat down to take wetsuit off which worked well. I had everything laid out well so pretty happy with this.

I guess I could run through it a bit more but obviously at this point I am trying to get HR down.

Felt really pretty decent all things considered for the first 5 miles or so. Got into aero and just spun easilly trying to get HR down. I got passed a bit at first but by nobody I really felt I couldn't stay with if I took it up a notch which I was trying not to do. Hit some of the hills b4 Road America and got up them OK. I was out of breath more than normal but again, probably can thank the swim for that. XH2Oskier and I were kind of riding together and then TriDDS caught up and passed us. Got into Road American and wasn't sure what to expect. It sucked! If you weren't climbing then you were turning. When you went downhill then you had to make turns right away at the bottom. As I was on my second and third loop it was getting very crowded with the sprinters in there and all the OLY people bunching up the course. I think it's miraculous actually that nobody (that I know of) gets seriously injured. I was very happy to be out of RA and headed back to transition. Even then there were some decent climbs to get up which I wasn't expecting (didn't drive that part).

One climb I made I was coming up on another biker and I had to do a double take. As I pass him, dudes got about 3 inches of hairy arse crack hanging out. Didn't need to see that at that point or any other point for that matter.

PeterAK past me around this point. He looked good and strong in his donkai gear!

Being in the hole already from my swim this bike wasn't as good as I would have expected but this course was the toughest bike course I have done in a tri. Extremely technical which frankly took some of the fun out of it. I'll take lots of hills but all the turning and the crowded nature of the whole thing I just wasn't ready for. That took a lot out of me. I could have paced myself even better but all things considered I was still better than half the field which is an improvement for me.

I guess I was a little slow on this but I was walking my bike through transition and not running. Otherwise racking was fine, getting running shoes on was fine,etc..

Move a bit faster

I knew as the run started I was on borrowed time. My nutrition plan was all messed up from the bike (it was hard to do much with all the turning, climbing, etc). I wanted to start easy and just get into it and for the first 1.5 miles I was fine but as I got to that subdivision climb I was in trouble. For the first time in a tri I started to walk. HR was up in the 170s to 180s and even by walking I couldn't get it down. I decided the energy needed to run up the hills was going to be worth spending for the time I was going to lose by walking. Even though at this point my pace was probably around 10 m/m which I would have been happy with but I just couldn't hold it. I was officially boking and there wasn't much I could do about it. I suffered through and felt some leg cramping coming on in the last mile but as I kept moving it didn't get too bad. Mentally I'm getting pretty frustrated now and I see my race slipping away which just is not a good feeling.

The last mile or so I was able to keep from walking although before that I was having a hard time even walking well. Turned the last corner and there's lots of people out and I see my clan which helped a lot so I sprinted the finish and tried to look strong. I was kind of delerious at this point so it's hard to remember details. I think my son ran in with me but in my mind I thought he was another racer so I was trying to sprint ahead of him. I'm such an idiot!

Once I got to this point I don't think there was much I could do. I have trained pretty hard over the winter to try and improve my run but this race wouldn't show it at all. I chalk it up to a poorly managed race on my part which is disappointing.

I sat down as I crossed the finish line. After a few minutes a cop came up to me and I think she thought I was gonna pass out. I kept saying I was OK and I think I was but she was kind enough to stick around and make sure. I got up and walked for a which getting fluids in me. Despite my disappointment my family and friends seemed quite impressed that I finished and participated so it was fun talking to them and hanging out.


See above about race management!

Great to be with all the donkeys. Fabulous showing by TriDDS - very impressed with his race! Congrats to maggyruth for becoming a triathlete! Hard luck of the day award goes to firstnet911 - that really rots! Never did see jmwebs so looking forward to reading his report. I didn't really run into travisvb24 or szbilicki much so looking forward to their reports too. Nice meeting tall_tri_dad!

Yes I did actually get hardware which I will never turn down but obviously when there are 3 in my category all you have to do is finish. I keep telling myself that I do deserve the award since no other fat 225+ up to 39 year olds dared to even tri!!


There are a lot of things I like about this race. Lake is gorgeous. Resort is awesome. I don't mind riding through Road America but 4X? It's dangerous I'm OK with hard but it's just a bit over the top in terms of being so different than what we can really train for.