Littlefoot Sprint Triathlon (first race with OWS) - TriathlonSprint

It is mid-May in Colorado, and the water is still cold. No real surprise since there was still ice on the lake not that long ago. The RD said the water was 60 degrees. The waves were divided by gender and age, and I was in the male over 40 group with about 40 other guys. When they called for us to get into the water, I turned to my friend and asked whether it was too soon to panic or already to late to panic. She just laughed and told me to get in the water, so I did.

I seeded myself off to the right hand edge of the group. I breath to the left, and hoped it would help me with sighting. Everybody spread out quit a bit, and it didn’t seem to me as if there was all that much commotion at the start. I swam up and bumped shoulders a couple of times with one guy, had a couple of guys swim up on my legs at the start, but otherwise had open space.

The course was 750 meters, set out in a triangle roughly 250 meters per side. I felt really good for the first 250 meters. I felt like I was swimming smoothly, and had no problems sighting the first buoy. I made the turn at the first buoy and swam into the sun. I had a little more difficulty sighting but I was still swimming pretty straight. It was about at this point that I started to ask myself, “What is the big deal was about swimming in open water?” And after starting near the back, I also started to pass a few people. I thought, “Here is where everyone who went out too hard gets tired, and I will fly right past them.”

The swim gods were not amused by my obvious display of hubris. I made the turn at the second buoy, and the wheels fell off. It was a very windy morning. There was a little chop, but it hadn’t bothered me at all on the first 2 legs. The ability to breath bilaterally would have come in really handy at this point. After seeing my swim time, it is obvious to me that I also started much too fast, and this is where I got tired. At this point, I lost all ability to swim in a straight line. I had been sighting every 7 to 10 strokes and that had been fine. I cut that down to every 4 or 5 strokes, but I still seemed to be off about 30 degrees every time I looked up. I also caught a face full of water at one point, choked and had to flip over on my back for a few seconds to catch my breath. It seemed like it took me longer to swim the last 250 meters than it took me to swim the first 500. I finally reached shallow water and stood up when my knuckles started hitting the bottom. I ended up a good 30 yards to the right of the swim exit, and had to walk back, but I was very glad to be out of the water. My kids cheered when they saw me, and my son tried to engage me in conversation. I was a bit disoriented and couldn't understand him, so I just waved and continued on.

Overall, my time was at least a minute faster than I expected, even though I really struggled on the last leg. I am pretty sure I could have started slower and still finished a lot fresher and with the same time. Given my time, I also have to wonder whether the course was short.


First, keep swimming. My swimming has come a long way, but I still have a long way to go. Second, more OWS practice. Not much I could have done for this race since it is so early in the year. Third, start slower. Forth, learn to breath bilaterally.

My T1 time was the 4th worst in my AG, so I have a lot to work on. At my mini sprint a few weeks ago, my T1 time was also slow, but it felt very smooth. Of course, the swim was shorter, in a warm pool, and I didn’t have to deal with a wetsuit. The big difference here was that my hands and feet were so cold, I couldn’t get them to do what I wanted them to. I didn’t feel cold in the water, but once out of the water, my hands and feet just didn’t want to function. I never had trouble getting my wetsuit off in practice, but I had trouble here getting it off my heels. It was cool and windy, so I decided to go with a long sleeve bike jersey, and I had great difficulty getting it on. I also thought I would never get my socks on. Finally had to sit down. Jogged with the bike to the transition exit and then really struggled to get my right foot to click it. Finally did it, and I was on my way.

Suck it up and deal with the cold and forget the jersey. Not race in May in Colorado?

If I have a strength, it is definitely the bike, and it was not long before I was passing people. I had also ridden the course several times which helped immensely. I knew that I could take all of the curves but one at full speed. The course was 3 laps out and back. The outbound section is slightly downhill and the wind wasn’t a factor (the wind was blowing pretty hard, but I was never able did figure out which direction it was coming from). I was able to fly on this section and was maintaining 28-30 mph. On the way back in, I struggled to hold 16 mph.

My biggest concern on the bike was that I was working too hard. I had planned to try to keep my HR at around 150 on the bike course except for the hills, but every time I looked at my HRM, it was 160+. My calves also were feeling pretty tight, so I took all of the e-caps I had with me. After the first lap, I settle down a bit, and did I little better job of keeping my HR down, but I was still concerned that I had gone out too hard.



Nothing much. I pushed pretty hard on the bike. I didn't blow up on the run, but a think I would have been faster if I had taken it a little easier on the bike. I just don't have the experience yet to know where the line is where pushing harder on the bike starts to negatively effect the run.

T2 was great. I had the 3rd fastest time in my age group. I unzipped the bike jersey and got my feet out of the shoes before the dismount line, hopped off the bike, jogged in, changed shoes, took off the helmet and grabbed my running hat. I got a really big cheer from my kids, and I was off.



Nothing

From the time I hit the timing mat, my calves were threatening to cramp up on me. My feet were cold from the bike and it felt like I was running on two blocks of wood. Aerobically, I felt OK and I could have run faster, but with the way my calves felt, I really thought that I was going to end up walking a lot of the run course. I did run the first mile slower due to the calves, but I kept going. Maybe the e-caps helped, but as I neared to turnaround point, my calves started to loosen up, and I was able to push the pace is little bit more. The last quarter of a mile before the turn we hit what was probably a tiny little hill, but it was very unwelcome at this point, although it was nice to be able to go back downhill after the turn. The run back in was fairly smooth. I just tried to keep an even pace. I even passed a couple of people. I didn’t really have a finishing kick, but I did a better job pushing myself in the last mile than I did at my last race. With the finish line in sight, I heard the loud cheer from my 2 kids, and I sprinted for the line.

At some point, I need to just focus on my running and try to get faster. Today, the only problem was the calves. Definitely slowed me down in the first mile. I will try more e-caps pre race and on the bike in the future. Run time was a minute faster than my last race but still a lot slower than what I would expect based on my time in an stand alone 5K. I probably need to go easier on the swim and the bike.

Had a banana and some water, then went back to the finish line to cheer for my wife. Headed for the pancake breakfast, but they were way slow with cooking the pancakes so we took the kids out for breakfast.


Inexperience mainly


This was the first year for the race. In general, I thought is was pretty well run. They were late in setting up the transition area, which was really no big deal. I was disturbed to see them start taking down the transition area bike racks before everyone was finished with the run. They couldn’t have waited another 30 minutes? They had also planned a pancake breakfast after the race. Unfortunately, they seemed prepared to feed about a dozen instead of a hundred plus.