The Nation's Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Not one of my best swims. I couldn't get a good seal on my goggles, so I had to fiddle with that a few times. I also just couldn't seem to get a good draft off anyone in the water- the few times I found a pair of feet to follow, I'd lose them quickly.

On the return downstream, we were swimming right into the sun, so sighting was difficult. I decided to follow a group and hope they knew where they were going, and I paid for it, as about 10 of us ended up off the course.

A pretty poor effort all around, and I was glad to be done with it. Training probably had something to do with it, as I'd only swum once in the last month, as well.

I will say that- despite expectations and rumors- the water seemed perfectly clean to me- much, much better than the exceptionally nasty Hudson swim at the NYC triathlon last summer.

Not a great T1- I felt bad after the swim and didn't hustle enough to the transition area.. and didn't move quickly enough when I was there.

I have to believe this course was short- I felt pretty good, and it's the first flat course I've done this year, but I can't believe I rode 25mi in 1:12ish. My Garmin had me at about 23, though I didn't start it at the very beginning of the ride.

At the same time, this was a very good ride for me. Unusually (and maybe because I had an unusually poor swim), I passed more people than I was passed by. Doesn't happen much. The course itself was pretty neat, and even though it was 2 loops, it didn't seem to bunch up too much. My favorite part of the course was going up and down Constitution Avenue- nice way to travel on that street.

There was no on-course support or aid stations- not really a huge deal because of the short length.

The course was pretty windy, though flat as a pancake. I think this was my first race where I never had to come out of the big ring.

Went OK- probably could have been a touch faster, but not bad.

The run was very strange. I'm glad I wore my GPS, because otherwise I would have had no idea how far I had gone. They were supposed to have aid stations every mile, but- with the exception of one at the 5-mile mark- they didn't have mile markers. And there was an aid station around the 3-mile mark that had water bottles wrapped up in plastic, but it looked like nobody had bothered to show up. At one aid station at around 4 mi (by my GPS), the volunteers were announcing that it was the 4-mi mark, but then the aid station marked as the 5-mi point came up less than half a mile later.. I think the run was short, too.. as much as I'd like to think I can pound out a 45:xx 10K after the swim and bike, my GPS had us at about 5.9 mi total.

But I felt great and- even if the course was short- I did better than I expected. It was fun to see all the Naval Academy (my alma mater) students out there- I was usually getting a quick look at their backs as they blew by me.

Like the bike, the run was very flat and fast, and it was cool to run close to the Washington Monument... and the finish area was well done, too.

I grabbed a water and coke and pretty much hopped right on the bus to take us back to transition (the race finished about 4mi away from the t-zone).

Unfortunately, because of the traffic, my wife could not get back into DC, and I ended up having to strap the transition bag on my back and bike back to Virginia.. that was a lot more warm-down than I had planned on.


Swim training and my cold.


Real kudos to the RD for securing the race in DC, particularly the Potomac swim. Overall it was pretty well-done, and I'm glad I did it, but probably wouldn't do it again.. some issues with attention to detail (e.g. mile markers/aid stations/course distance/check-in logistics), and it was pretty expensive.

But a nice way to see DC!