St. Paul Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Solid swim. The first lap was pretty uneventful really. The second lap was crowded since the sprint course waves were also in the water by that time. Lots of swimming around people but otherwise nothing noteworthy. I was really trying to find someone to draft off of, but was having a hard time so I finally just gave up on it. I probably swam farther than I needed to because I was not staying super close to the buoys, but it was so crowded in there, I was happy to stay farther to the outside and have a bit more room to swim. I didn't really push very hard in this swim, I must admit. Just got into a steady groove and kept going.

Not a lot...draft better maybe

Meh. Pretty slow but I took the time to wipe off my feet a little and put socks on.

Run (not walk) to my spot. :)

Decent bike. It's weird because my computer had me at 17.0 mph, the results had me at 18.2 mph, and the auto-calc thing on this report puts me at 18.6 mph. LOL I'll take that last one, please! :) I tried to override the auto calc number in this report and use the official number of 18.2 mph, but every time I click Save it resets to 18.6. Even the official 18.2 seems awfully far off from my bike computer's 17.0, but I always go with the official results. This time it's in my favor. :)

Anyway, this ride was fine. The road surface is pretty bad, so it requires more concentration which is good for helping me not think about how slow I am.

Had a Hammer gel right at the start of the ride. Not surpisingly it gave me a side cramp, but I figured if I ate it early enough on the ride, the cramp would subside before the run, which it did. Tried to drink enough water so that I wasn't thirsty but not too much (which would lead to another cramp). Did well with that.

Bike more in the weeks leading up to the race...

Would have been faster if there weren't all kinds of people milling around in the T area. Seriously, I yelled "Excuse me!" to the group that was totally body blocking the path to my spot. They didn't move. I yelled again, and this time they moved just enough for me to get through. The kicker is they were spectators! Why, yes, by all means let's let spectators further crowd the already sardine-packed transition area! grrr

Just plow right over them? Ok, I guess that is not nice...

First lap - ok, not great, not too bad for the most part.

Second lap - pure torture. Good gravy, did this SUCK. The first part was ok, but after about mile 4, things deteriorated QUICKLY. I was so super hot I thought I was going to have to walk. I kept truding along, though, only walking at the water stop.

By the last half mile or so, my hands felt like they were no longer attached to my body, and my face was absolutely on fire, so I was enormously glad I was almost done. Pattie passed me with about 150 yards to go (darn you, Pattie!! ;) ) and I did not have any energy at all to try to keep up with her.

This ended up being an 11:02/mile average which is much slower than my 10:22/mile average from last year. That sucks, but I do think I ran shorter last year. This year, they had arrows indicating which way to go when the run/bike path would split for a short while, and each time except one it would direct us to the outside path. I know last year (when there were no arrows) I took the inside every time. Probably not a huge difference in the distace, but some.

Do more than a handful of 5+ mile runs during the whole summer leading up to this race.

There wasn't any water at the finish when I crossed the line.. WTF?? Actually, they had water, but no cups to put it in... Are you kidding me??? So one volunteer tells me I can get some water "over there." and points in the general direction of the registration building. I wander around over there for FAR too long before finally finding a stash of warm water bottles in the corner. I was dying for some water at this point, so I sucked down nearly the whole thing immediately, warm or not. I also grabbed an extra bottle to give to someone who might need it later since the stock was getting so low.

Anyway, I walked back to my T area and changed my shirt. Just then I saw Emily cross the finish so I talked to her for a minute and gave her the extra water bottle. The awards actually started shortly after, so that was nice anyway. I did stretch some and went and stood in the cool lake water for a while to help the legs.


My training the last few weeks has been very sub par, and I felt every bit of that during this race. I was waaaay underprepared for that run and it sucked.


So, this race was a disappointing performance for me, but I have no one to blame but myself. I would say that I'll do better next year except that I doubt I'll do this race next year for a number of reasons. There are some good things about this race (low race fee, convenient location), but there are some definite drawbacks as well:

-road surface on the bike is awful; very bumpy
-not even close to enough racks for all the racers
-not even close to enough port-a-johns
-not even close to enough post-race snacks/drinks

I know Vacation Sports events are lower key than most and that is fine, but not being able to cover the basic needs of the race is a problem. I've raced this course twice now and volunteered once and all three times it's been the same story. So next year I think I'll find an oly at a different venue and see if I can't do a little better. :)