Long Island Gold Coast Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I noticed people in the earlier waves getting pushed to the right, so I seeded myself in the front third of the group, and all the way to the left. Jumped in and started swimming and immediately found myself zooming past people. This was, I think, my best swim ever in a race. I felt smooth and fast the entire way, passed tons of people, to the point where I couldn't find anyone to draft off of. Sighting was PERFECT. I literally brushed both buoys with my left shoulder as I swam around them. By the time I got to the end, I was surrounded by swimmers from the previous waves. My wife said I was in the top 10 out of the water.

In terms of swimming, nothing. My stroke was good, breathing was good, and sighting was perfect. The time reflects a LONG run up the beach, which I did slowly, since it was on concrete and I was barefoot, so I didn't want to aggravate my calf injury. I also tried taking my wetsuit off as soon as I got off the beach, which I've read is much easier than waiting until you get to transition after it's had a chance to dry out some. This worked really well.
Bad news is, between the long, careful jog up the beach and the wetsuit removal, I dropped back in the pack, but this was still an awesome swim. I'd bet the swim alone was closer to 13-14 minutes.

70th fastest transition overall out of about 780 people. Not having to struggle with the suit helped a lot.

Nothing.

Grrr. Once again, I'm an eyelash shy of 20mph. I'm actually surprised it wasn't slower. This was a tricky course: crowded (I was in the 2nd to last wave), a little hilly, a couple of hairpin turns, and a brutally horrible road surface. It's common in a race to have a few bumps, and so you always see those yellow things that fall out of aerobottles, and, maybe the odd bottle that falls out of a cage. But I stopped counting the number of yellow poufs and bottles I saw after about 25 or so. I also saw computers, tubes, gloves, sunglasses all over the road.
I ate one gel at 15 minutes and planned to eat the second at 30 minutes. I decided to wait until I'd passed this one especially rough stretch of road before I ate and...POW! Hit a pothole and lost the entire contents of my bento box. Damn.
I didn't do the jump out-of-the-shoes thing, either. Because a) my rack was close enough to the bike-in that I didn't feel the need to risk it, but mostly because b) I hadn't practiced in a while and I chickened out. I also left about 1/3 of my aerobottle, which had water+Nuun in it unfinished. A mistake, as it turned out.

Go faster. Drink more. Not lose my gu's.

I initially racked my bike in such a way that I didn't give the guy next to me much room, so I reracked it. I also took a second to put some Bodyglide+heat and a neoprene wrap on my calf. Overall, it was a little slow, but ok.

Not need the wrap, rack the bike better the first time. Drink more.

Started slowly, because I wanted to make sure my calf was ok. I stopped about 100y into the run to tighten/readjust the wrap and couldn't get the velcro to stick. Once I got going, it felt a little crampy, but didn't hurt, so I kept a quick pace, but didn't push too much.
By the middle of the second loop, I could feel my calves cramping, but there was no gatorade or other electrolytic relief to be had. Nothing to do but keep pushing and hope to finish before they locked up. I tried to keep the pace up as high as I could, and did fine. Saw my family about 100y from the finish, and, although it hurt, I made sure to give a good kick to the finish. This woman started to pass me, and we sprinted together for about 75 feet, until, with about 25 feet before the finish, I said, "Take it", and slowed down so we could each have our own photo. She came by afterwards to tell me "that was fun" and thank me.


Seriously think about endurolytes. I wish I had known beforehand that there would be no gatorade on the course. That could have been bad--if this race had been much longer, I would have been in no condition to finish. Overall, pace is pretty good, but I had to suffer for it, that's for sure.

Took off my chip. hobbled over to my rack, where I found my entire family waiting. Great to see them, but..umm...what was security doing? Gathered up my stuff, got some granola bars and water (no gatorade at the post-race either). Walked a looooong way back to the car and drove back to my inlaws.


Calf cramps, but I'll take cramps over pulls/sprains any day. Hydration was never a problem for me before, but I have to start paying attention to it as the weather gets even hotter.


This is a decent local race. A fair value for the money. A few things could have been better organized--for example, they had no portapotties. Relying on two small bathhouses' bathrooms for 750+ triathletes and their families is just silly. And not having any gatorade or sports drink on the run course for a triathlon in June is asking for trouble IMO. I'd do this race again, though.