Black Squirrel Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Again, didn't feel as good on this swim as I did during Papillion. Wonder what the cause was... Just didn't feel like I was as comfortable, plus it seemed to drag on forever... Had a guy actually do a "hey buddy!" put-your-arm-around-me sorta thing. Surprised the heck outta me but apparently it didn't bother him because he kept on going! I returned the favor about 200 yards later. Really couldn't get into a groove, nor was I drafting/sighting very well. My time was as good as I expected, though not as good as I hoped. Was really looking for the 18's. My original goal was 15's and I probably could have done it if I had practiced like I wanted it.

More swim volume leading up to the race. I think I sort of shot myself in the foot with this marathon training. It's too hard to maintain a balance.

My stupid cycling jersey got stuck on me like a bra. Dunno how that happened. I rolled it up from the inside out so that I could just slip it on and then roll it down while I was on the bike. Yep, THAT didn't happen! Plus the bottom is very tight around me. Not tight, but it just doesn't have any "give" so it was hard to get it unraveled.

Go bare torso. I wasn't aware that we could but since we had timing chips and I had my gels taped to my bike it would have been a very good idea.

Finally got my jersey rolled down after about a mile on the bike. Hydration/gelling was good. Glad I've ridden that course enough to know all the nuances [like not getting smacked head-on right before the ISD bridge]. Kept slowing myself down because I didn't want to overexert myself. I'm actually proud of my avg speed. We did an hour at 17.3 average a few weeks ago and I about died at the end!

Bare torso, definitely. Oh, and reset my cyclometer after warm-up. Thought I did, guess I didn't.

Ran the wrong way out of transition. Hey they didn't tell us! Thankfully my mom caught me and told me to go the other way, otherwise I don't know if the volunteers would have! Probably cost me four seconds. Ah well. Took my water bottle with me off the bike because I wasn't sure if they had aid stations out on the run. This turned out to be a good idea because there was only one.

Not go the wrong way.

Brynn caught up to and passed me when I stopped to eat a gel after mile 1. I finally caught back up w/her before mile 2 and we hung together for a little while. I shared some of my water with her because she was obviously unprepared and didn't have any with her. Pretty sure that's illegal in most races, but who cares! At the aid station [the only one] the girl goes "Water or Powerade?" and I go "ooh powerade!" so she goes "okay" and gives me water. Stupid B-I-TungCungHung! I thought it was the white powerade which is my absolute FAVE but it wasn't. Talk about letdown. It was probably for the best though, since I took another gel later on and I'm not sure how the powerade would have worked along with that. I guess it was a powergel so it should have been okay right? Brynn left me behind not long after the water station and I plodded along until 2 minutes after mile 5. I figured I had a one mile kick in me! So I picked up my pace and caught her at about probably 5.6 or 5.7 miles, passed her, and fought her off the whole rest of the way home. This wouldn't have been a 10K PR for me but it would definitely fall into the top 3, so that's exciting! I'm glad Brynn was there for me to chase because I'm not sure if I could have just pushed myself for the heck of it.

Build an aid station the night before just for my own personal use.

A little stretching, some pudding, slim jims, coke, water, apple, orange, chatting with people, taking pics, takin a HUGE crap! I had to crap the entire race, btw.


Having to take a crap the entire race. Oh and poor swim training. Also not as much race-specific training. Been doing a lot of LSD work. The bike is the only thing I trained at race pace and it showed up.


Poor aid stations, poor directing in the beginning, poor awards ceremony, poor post-race refreshments, poor directing near the ice cream shoppe. It's only their 2nd year so you can't blame 'em, but it still makes you not really want to do something like that again as much.