Benaroya Research Institute Triathlon at SEAFAIR - TriathlonSprint

Waves were assigned based on age group. I'm reasonably good at open water swimming, so I seeded myself in the second row of people. The water was so warm that I regretted wearing a wetsuit.

The start of the swim was worse than any I have been in. Immediately everyone crashed into one another. I'm used to being shoulder-to-shoulder with swimmers, but here they were even closer. Elbows were coming up below my chest and face, so I wasn't very thrilled with that. I swallowed a great deal of water in the beginning. About 100 meters in, some swimmers ahead of me fell apart, so I had to dodge some frog kicks. After passing this group the water became clear and I could finally go at my own pace. I didn't draft off of anyone, which is fine with me.

I'm happy that I was the 12th man in from my wave, but I'm disappointed in my time. My goal was to break 13 minutes, which was reasonable because my pace in my last Olympic was that fast. I blame the crazy start.

Move up to the front line next time. Maybe I should work on sprinting at the beginning in order to get away from the crowd. Then I can settle into my pace.

Oh yeah, no wetsuit next time.

My transitions are gradually getting faster. My wetsuit came off without incident, which is rare for me. I wore my race belt under my suit, which was super smart of me.

I chose to run in my bike shoes, which was tricky once we hit the pavement.

Eventually I'll learn how to transition with my shoes already on my bike. However, this race is so crowded I would probably crash or block someone while I try to get my feet in.

My goal was to do 21 mph. According to my watch I did 20.8, but there were a few seconds after the transition mat where I was still running.

Anyway, the bike was fine. I passed people the whole time, and only one person passed me (although that doesn't mean much for a wave start). As for nutrition, I ate one GU while I was running with my bike out of nutrition, and then I had another one about 20 minutes into the bike. I was worried that the second GU would upset my stomach in the run, but it didn't. I think I wound up with a pretty good nutrition strategy.

Oh yeah, and my overall place went from 203 to 151 by the end of the bike. No complaints there.

Nothin'. My effort level was good. I just have to keep training to get faster.

This was fine. I didn't run very hard through the transition, so maybe I could have made it faster.

I wore my Brooks Trance shoes. They were tricky to get on because the heel is very soft, but they made up for that once I was into the run.

Use speed laces or yanks or something. Or I could pull my feet out of my bike shoes before dismounting.

I tried to do the first mile at a steady place, because I was afraid of the upcoming hill in mile 2. I was surprised at how fast my first mile was. If they only took away the hill I would have one heck of a 5k time.

Running is my best leg, so I passed lots of people and was never passed myself. I startled a lot of people, I think, because I was breathing very hard and coming up on them fast. A lot of heads turned when I got within a few meters of whoever I was passing.

I did get one challenge during the run, from a 16-year-old. When I was beginning to pass him, he looked back about 4 times, and he was moving somewhat fast, so I knew right away he would try to stay with me. He did stay right behind me for about a half mile, and made his move to repass me when we started on the uphill. Unfortunately for him, I was holding back a bit. I let him get a step ahead of me and then I stayed right behind him, breathing down his neck to add that little psychological touch. He fell apart before reaching the top, and then I cruised away to beat him by 30 seconds. See that? I'm tricky :)

Nothin'. It was a good run. Over the 5k distance my overall place went from 151 to 68.

I jogged a little, stretched on the grass, and drank about 4 Jamba Juices. The post-race food here was excellent.

I had a 10-mile ride back home too.


Crowdedness in the swim, and my usual lazy approach to transitions. However, it was a PR by about 4 minutes.

In my current age group, it looks like 3rd place was 2 minutes faster than me, so next year I'll have to make sure I work on killing the swim and transitions.


I'm impressed that they put on a race this big in such a small venue, but I don't think they should start the race at 7:00 am. They only needed to close 6 miles of (lightly traveled) road, and even the slowest people were done with the bike before 9:00. Why such a rush?