Black Squirrel Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Men and teams went out first. Women followed after 4 minutes. This was good in that I didn't get beat up, but bad because there were only 32 women in my wave without much opportunity to draft. This was a beautiful, calm swim, however, and I really enjoyed it.

Get faster?

This was my first wetsiut race that I did not have wetsuit strippers. I did not practice getting it off, and had great difficulty with the legs.

Not wear a wetsuit, or practice this more.

The loop around the lake was on the road and was flat and fast. Once I got on the bike trail, the surface became rough with dirt, gravel, mud and water. There was barely room to pass. Several times I almost hit the bike in front of me and had to press on the brakes HARD. The mileage was also short for what is normally considered to be an olympic tri. If biking is your strongest sport, the shorter more technical course may leave you further behind your competitors than you would like.

Nothing.

Much better transition.

Nothing.

I started out slow due to my harder pace on the bike. After about 1.5 miles at a 10min/mile pace, I picked up the pace and tried to keep with a guy that passed me earlier. This pace was difficult to keep up for the last five miles, but managed to stay at an 8min/mile pace. I liked having the goal of keeping up with someone in front of me.

The bad thing about this was that there was only one water stop between miles 2 and 3. In most tri's there are water stops at every mile. I was not expecting this.

I really need to get some coaching on how to run faster. This area of triathlon continues to be my weakest, despite the fact that I love running!

Ate, walked, drank.


Age, training, genetics.


I don't believe the organizers of this race are triathletes themselves. Racing on a pot-holed, narrow, bike trail with other bikers heading straight for you at 20+mph is NOT smart. There was one water station on the entire course (including transition). When you are running or biking for long distances, nutrition plays a vital role. In most cases this nutrition can only be safely consumed with water. After the tri, the organizers ran out of bottled water as we were waiting for results to be tabulated!