Pleasant Prairie Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Since this race was just for fun I decided it was a good race to mess around with some new techniques. One of them was to go out on the swim harder and to be more aggressive. I realized at Racine I kind of sit back and take the swim easy and it's costing me time. There were a couple of things I did to work on this:

1) My best previous oly swim was 35 minutes and some change. I wanted to come somewhere near that. Someone I know has been doing awesome this season and they had a time very close to that yesterday so I used them as my mental rabbit.

2) When I would feel myself falling into a relaxed stroke I would really try to focus on a purposeful, strong stroke

3) There were two women who kept swimming right into me. And really clobbering me when they would do so. At first I thought it was just one who kept running into me over and over again and then they were both there at once at one point and I realized it was two of them, both without a wetsuit, wearing the exact same uniform. They REALLY made me mad. They wouldn't just swim into me, but they would hit and kick when they did so. They were ridiculously aggressive sometimes and it wasn't really gaining them any ground on me. At first I would just try to swim away from them (which I continued to do) but about halfway through I got pretty aggressive back. I was sick of it. And a couple of times I swam really hard to get away from them. I'm not sure if I beat them out of the water, but I hope so. I was sure trying.

Whatever happened today, it worked. I set an oly PR swim by about three minutes!!!!! Yeah. :)

Focus more on keeping a purposeful, strong stroke the entire swim. Continue to work on being more aggressive both in the swimming itself, but also in dealing with other swimmers who are being aggressive. I'm decently assertive in the water, but I tend to back off a bit when I run into the super aggressive people because I assume it must mean they are a better swimmer. What I learned today is that it might just mean they are obnoxious, but they don't necessarily have anything on me in speed.

Slooowwww. Like always. I really need to work on my T1. I also lost some time because I had accidentally buried my socks under a layer of towel with my running shoes. If it rained during the bike I wanted the running shoes dry. Somehow the socks got in there too, but I didn't know and I absolutely cannot ride or run without socks so I had to find them.

Put my socks in my cycle shoes like I normally do. Work on being faster in T1 in general.

As part of the "this race is only for fun" theme, I decided to hammer on the bike as much as my legs and the conditions would permit. Given that I stupidly decided to do lunges for the first time in about two years on Friday night, my butt was pretty dang sore still and this didn't do me any favors, especially on the rollers. (Hey, since this was for fun, I didn't stick to some super serious training or taper. I just did whatever to maintain as much fitness as I could after Racine).

My butt just hurt for a good portion of this ride and my hamstrings that have been acting up for forever, were aggravated by it all. I was a little worried how they would survive on the run given how they were feeling on the ride. Turns out they were the least of my worries on the run.

It was drizzling a bit and this kept me, the roads, the bike, and the brakes in a nice state of damp to wet. They had warned us to be careful on the turns for this reason so whenever I hit a corner I tapped my brakes a little in advance to make sure they would work if I needed them and then proceeded with caution.

I yo yo'd back and forth with a woman on the bike. She was doing better on the low grade inclines and rollers (thanks to those stupid lunges) and I was stronger on the flats and downhills. We rolled into transition within about a second or two of each other and I decided it was ON for the run. I knew the run would be tough though. My legs were feeling pretty trashed and my run is just not as strong as it used to be.

Not do stupid lunges two days before the race. Ride more hills so I don't have to bat an eye at the rollers like today, and just get the miles in to be a stronger rider in general. I put in some long rides this summer to train for my HIM and several shorter rides and thought I would gain more than I did on the bike this year. This pace was not quite as fast as my oly pace from last year although it was decent all things considered. I rode hard and kept a fairly decent pace for me and I'm not disappointed. I just need to keep putting in the miles until I'm a better rider.

Ugh, AGAIN I forgot to tie my shoes the night before and had to do it in transition. And for some reason my fingers felt all stiff and uncoordinated so it took me awhile. Made this transition slow as well.

The good thing--I beat the woman from the bike out of transition. :)

Tie my shoes the night before.

This was a tough run. Since I tried to focus on the bike more this year and for not having gained as much as I would have liked, I sure gave a lot up on my run. That's a tough thing to accept. I know that overall it's a decent pace and I am grateful for that, but it's one of the slowest oly runs I've ever done. And I was really struggling to maintain my pace. It didn't help that I went out too fast on the first mile.

The course was also messing with me. It seemed like it wound all over the place. And at three and a half miles you were still heading AWAY from the finish. THAT messed with me a lot. I kept thinking surely they have to head us towards the finish soon. I much prefer an out and back, even if it's two loops or one big loop. Then I don't see people running every which direction and yet still have no idea where the course is going.

I saw Whizzzzz around mile 3 and talked to her for a few second. And then sometime after mile 4 I saw the woman from the bike. She was about a mile and a half behind me at that point and I saw the look on her face when she looked up and we made eye contact. I smiled and thanked the tri-gods that my not so great run IS still a decent pace and used her as part of my motivation to keep pushing. Around mile 6 I was hurting to keep the slower pace I had established for the run after the first mile and I was starting to feel a teeny bit light headed. I kept pushing as best I could and somehow managed to maintain it. Saw Coredump near the finish and could barely muster a wave, but it helped to have someone cheer for me at that point.

I would have handled my run training in general differently this past year than my training plan called for. It just doesn't seem like I should be dropping in the standings overall at my races because I've gained so little on my bike and lost so much on my run. When I had a stronger run I actually had a better chance of placing better overall than I do now. Next time I need to follow my gut more about what works best for me with running.

I also need to work on wrapping my head around the fact that when you're focusing on long course, your short course is not going to be as fast. And I need to wrap my head around the fact that I AM going to have to give up something on my run to have a stronger bike. Having always been a stronger runner, I'm extremely resistant to giving up anything and I want to kick butt on the bike NOW if I'm going to do so, but that's not how it works and I need to be okay with that.

Walked around until I didn't feel so light-headed. And then walked back to the finish to cheer Whizzzzz in.


I think that's all been covered.

This race was actually only seven minutes behind my PR time and I had expected to be much slower. I'm not sure where I thought the extra time was going to be added on since I wanted a similar bike and only slightly slower run from my PR, but for some reason I thought it would be a lot slower. Overall I was happy with my time and for the last race of the season and the crazy weather, I had a good time


The delayed start and fewer volunteers were due to weather and not the race organization. Overall it was a well organized race and they did a great job given the inclement weather. I would recommend this race to a first timer or a veteran triathlete looking for a course that will allow them to turn out a good time.