Philadelphia Triathlon in Fairmount Park - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

Had made a decision not to try to 'race' the swim and immediately just tried to settle into a solid, steady pace. Unfortunately, other than for the first few hundred meters, I never really had a draft. Like last year, I stayed towards the left heading toward the bridge and then took what I believe is a straight line to the turn buoy. The rest of the field largely stays towards the right and follows the curve of the bouys after the bridge which appears to be a longer course. The bad news is nobody to draft. The good news is that this delys the 'pile-up' of slower swimmers from earlier waves until after hitting that turn buoy and the final few hundred meters back to shore.

The swim didn't 'end' until after a short run into transition. Since I stopped out of the water to remove my wetsuit, that's included in my swim time instead of T1 as well.

If I had more confidence in my fitness level heading into the race, I would have pushed the swim more. But it was a pretty good start for me this day.

Since I was already out of my wetsuit, this was a pretty straight-forward transition. Knocked my PT head off while exiting and had to double back for it. Otherwise it was a fairly smooth, if not especially speedy, transition.

Not knock the PT head off the bike. I keep saying this, but learn to go without socks. It's not really much time, but one less thing to do can only help here.

This was a good, but not great bike for me. I rode hard, but wasn't mentally into it. Last year, I remember just being 'zoned-in' for the ride and really focused on the moment. This year, I seemed distracted at times and had to remind myself to keep up the effort.

I should have pushed the bike harder.

Nothing unusual here. Got in. Got out.

Nothing.

Started out steady and hit the first mile in 7:30. Decided that was 'too steady' and pushed it up a little. Second mile was 7:17 and I decided that was fine. Basically held that effort until kicking it up towards the finish and nudging past one guy in my AG--really one of the few times I 'raced' all day.

I raced how I wanted to today, so hard to say I'd do anything differently. But I really should have pushed myself a little harder. I'm pretty sure I could have cut a minute out of this run just by 'toughing' it out. But that'll have to be for another race.

Walked back to my family, grabbed some food and chatted briefly with a few other BTers (Mike, Time, Laura) as I ran into them before heading home.


Fitness level was down a bit from last year--both training and illness induced. But bigger factor was that I didn't come mentally ready to race and just sort of accepted 'hard' as 'good enough'. Don't want to make it sound like I coasted through the race--just never tried to push myself up to the 'edge'.


I really enjoy this course a lot. But 2,000 is a LOT of people on that bike course. And if rumors are true that they are going to increase the size, then I may not go back many more times. There also seem to be some other issues with its growing size that make it harder to manage some of the 'details' (pedestrian crossing near the bike-in just after a fast descent, some timing screw-ups, confusing registration process, etc.) But lots of volunteers, decent post-race food and the kids' races on Sat are nice.