Timex Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This wast the worst experience of my entire life. I'll take miles 20-25 of a marathon, at least there I never felt like I was going to die. Have no fear, my performance was WORSE than indicated here. This should be a DQ because I had to have assistance from the kayak.

Last Wednesday I got sick. Been sick all week, but felt good this morning. Got into the water, promptly cut my foot on the concrete (have to go get a tetanus shot tomorrow).

I just couldn't get a breath. Even sitting here typing it feels like something is constricting my chest. I've been open water swimming over the last month, and did just shy of a mile on Wednesday, and none of that mattered. I couldn't breathe, and as I struggled from buoy to buoy, barely able to float even when doing the back stroke. I felt horrible.

Felt like a complete and utter failure. Why have I been training for months? Why do I do open water swims. What is the square root of 7,587? Honestly, I didn't have my sense of humor out there.

Did manage to freestyle in the last 150 yards or so, but got out of the water feeling like a whipped dog.

I don't know. Is it that I suck? Is it that I'm sick? Guess swim more, but even then I'm not sure.

Given how horrific my swim was, transition was a godsend. Looking at my transition times I was pretty strong. Snapped my garmin into the quick release, pulled on socks. I had to slow down a bit here to try to make sure I didn't rip of the flap of skin from the water. Snapped on race belt and helmet, started running. Helmet felt wrong, so I messed with that as I ran.

Swim better. I felt pretty good about the transition.

By now I had already considered that I had DQd. I just wanted to get a good ride. I rode solid, but didn't really try to kill myself. I also vowed that if I saw someone on the side of the road walking I'd see if I could help them...see if I could help someone else's day.

I did end up finding someone walking on the last lap. Stopped, but he said he thought he had a rim tape problem, so nothing I could do there.

Did a good job of avoiding that horrific expansion joint on the bridge.

Couldn't drink enough because I was trying to keep a decent pace, but it was cool, so it didn't really matter.

Better swim.

I tried to carry more speed through the dismount line (ie, run off the bike), but failed utterly when one of my shoes hit the ground and popped off. Had to stop and get it (volunteer was kind enough to pick it up for me).

Into transition fine, had garmin snapped to my quick release tightened shoes, was gone. Broke one end of the Yangz thing, but that's no big deal.

Slow down more at the dismount line.

The run was pleasant. I worked on keeping a high cadence and just relaxing. My left foot was bothering me a bit from the cut, and my old friend "arch blister" was on the right, but honestly they didn't make much difference. I pushed more through the last mile and still felt good. I could have gone harder, but this is a decent time for me.

Better swim. Run harder earlier.

Stop and talked to my wife briefly (and said Hi to my yougest, along for the ride), and then went to the medical tent to look at the cut on my foot. Wasn't too bad, but had grass in it from transition. They cleaned it up (iodine feels so nice) and bandaged it up. Told me to go get a tetanus shock this week.

My original plan was to stick around and try to socialize, but honestly, I felt like a complete loser given my swim.


Being sick certainly didn't help. I felt fine on the bike and run, but the swim just demoralized me. I'm not sure what to do but to try to get back in the water. Will probably try to take a few days off though to get over whatever I have.


Very well run.