Tri Ridgefield - TriathlonSprint

This was a half mile swim, and looking at it across the lake, it seemed sooooo far. But I know I can swim the distance, so it was just a matter of doing it. The course was basically cut into 3rds. The first part of the swim sucked. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Within 3 minutes I got completely smacked in the head just as I was coming up for a bite of air and came up with a good swallow of water instead. It totally disrupted my breathing and I had to tread water for about 2 seconds before continuing. Up to that point, my stroke rate had been pretty high, but I decided to just stop that and go nice and easy, breathe nice and easy. My main goal was to keep my HR low.

After rounding the 1st buoy, it got better. I occasionally found feet to follow, and all was well, and I got into a good rhythm.

After the final buoy, I was getting pretty bad at sighting - it disrupts my breathing and it was getting a bit hard to do well - so I told myself, just go for shore. Unfortunately, shore is kinda big and i veered off course. I had found that without the help of the black T on the bottom of the pool, I was often veering left. I ended up maybe 15 feet to the left of where I needed to be, totally lengthening my course. I only noticed because I saw a kayak right by me, and I was like, "i'm not struggling, I'm swimming steadily and easily" - but then I stopped for a moment to really look and I was off in teh boonies. So I made a sharp turn, and was mad, so I swum hard for shore.

In the end though, this might be one of my best swims because of the rhythm I did manage to get into. Plus, when I got out, I felt fine.

Sight better instead of just deciding to go for shore.

This includes a fairly long run to TA. My rank was pretty darn low though. I had trouble getting the suit off, it probably took me 45s to do. Then, I sat down and squirted my feet with water, toweled them off, and got my socks and shoes on. Took a drink, and put on my helmet, and then I went. I suppose there are a lot of ways I could save time here, but I'm not sure I care at the moment.

Eh...maybe practice getting the wetsuit off better.

This bike was an exercise in calming down. I was so....not excited "ooh i'm racing" excited, but more like, "HR crazy and I'm mentally all over the place" excited. Within 3 minutes, I was going up a hill and I was huffing and puffing, not because it was a hard hill, but I was still needing to calm down from all the excitement, so I decided to shift to my small chain ring - and my chain FELL OFF!!!! GAR!!!!! I tried to shift it back up, but I was already slowing down a lot and was going to fall over so I just quickly clipped out, went to the side, and got it back on. But it took me too long - maybe 1 minute (?!!??). Then I got going again. A while later, on another little roller, I tried again - and chain fell off AGAIN!!! This is strange, I definitely had no problems shifting into small ring the last several times I biked - I guess I should have checked it before the race, but I didn't. Bad me. Anyway, this time I successfully shifted it back onto to the big ring and just kept going. I resolved I would just do the whole race in the big ring.

I spent the first 6 miles or so literally just calming down. Trying to slow my breathing from Z4 sounding breathing to Z2 sounding breathing. I just tried to get myself under control.

After that, I started to remember I was in a race, and that I should try to bike efficiently and effectively, and my technique became much better - circles of the feet, etc. Before I was just wildly biking and trying to be in control - and this was an exercise in further control - now, trying to bike RIGHT. The circles make such a difference in biking, everything gets better when I circle my feet.

At some point, I had to brake because there was a car. The police officer let them sneak in between a few riders, which I suppose is most fair for the motorist who doesn't want to wait for a bajillion riders, but it sucked for me because then he got stuck behind the rider in front of me, and was braking, so I had to brake, even though it was a fast section. Finally, when I noticed it was totally clear, I just passed on the wrong side of the road. Probably unsafe, but I could see no one was coming. Very annoying.

The last half of the race was pretty good, my climbing got much better, I did a bit of standing on several rollers, and I hit 36mph at one point on a downhill.

The layout of the race was kinda bad, and as I approached the end of the bike, first I had to brake because there were spectators sauntering in the road (thankfully, I only had to brake a teeny bit, otherwise I would have been very angry!), and I had NO direction as to what to do and there were no cones or anything to make it clear. I was yelling at the cops and volunteers as I approached, "HEY HEY WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO?" but they weren't paying any attention and there were so many people around they couldn't hear me. Finally I noticed someone in the distance waving me in, so I went to them. All in all, probably a 5 second loss. Not that it mattered, but still annoying.

The bike was supposed to be 14 miles long but I got it as only 12.5. Summary: First half bad, 2nd half good, drank 3/4 of my sports drink bottle, felt very full, and felt pretty good coming off the bike.

Try to calm myself faster and focus on circle feet from start to finish.

This was ok. I for some reason was obsessed with the idea of hanging my helmet back on my bike, which doesn't make sense but I was. I also had a bit of trouble squeezing my bike onto the rack, ther was a bike there that I hadn't seen at all before the race. Thanks to the Yankz I got from Hayes, my shoes were on in a jiffy and off I went.

Mmmm....just move faster, I guess. Maybe throw my helmet down instead of being anal and obsessive for no reason.

Man, did I feel like garbage when this started. My stride length was probably 6 inches long, and I was just doing the shuffle. Tom took a picture of me, bleh. He said later that I didn't look good, but I didn't look bad...well, I felt like I must have looked BAAAAAAAAD. I actually stopped to walk after 100 yards, thinking I needed to slow down my heart before going again, and get my legs back. But a spectator was like, "Come on, you can do it!" after a few steps of walking, so I smiled and got going again, doing the shuffle.

Around 13 minutes, I started to feel a teeny bit better, and I ran a little faster. But during this time, I was getting SCHOOLED by 40 year old women. I was probably passed by 6 people, and 5 of them were women in the 40-44 AG, and one of them was in her 30's. I felt so lame! But more power to them.

Finally, around 20 minutes, I realized I was feeling GOOD, just like a regular run, and that my stride and everything ahd improved significantly, so I picked it up and tried to run the last mile well. Which I think I did, I finished pretty strong, which I'm quite pleased about, that my body came back and I could do that, despite the complete lack of training in the last 2 weeks.

Maybe try to run harder, push harder.

Nothing. I felt fine, I just got some food, found Tom, and sat down and ate.


I think if this race had been 2 weeks ago, I might have been able to cut up to 5 minutes off my time, easily, just from being in better shape then. But I'm not regretting the lack of workouts because I think the presentation I had to prepare for was much much more important, but I'm still sad that the race turned out like this - I swear I can perform faster. I think easily, with my HR more under control, I could have picked it up on the bike and the run without a problem. Anyway, oh well.


I don't want to knock this race hard, because I think the RD is a good guy who has done a lot of work for it, and it is a nice little local race. But some things need work. The layout of this course, I felt was just horrible. It made for extremely disorganized finishes for both the bike and run portions, and people were constantly crowding the course and getting in the way. I heard the announcer say, "Come on people, there are racers here, GET OFF THE COURSE". But the layout was such that it really facilitated bad behavior. Too much going on in a tiny area. Then, the post race activities were also mashed in there, so just...I dunno. I didn't know where the food was (Tom had to tell me, as he had been a spectator and noticed), and just a few other layout issues.

The volunteers at the aid station and at the guiding points were great, except at the very end because I think there was too much chaos. As I mentioned above, I was approaching the bike finish and no one affiliated with the race had any idea I was coming to guide me where to go, I was basically just riding through a sea of people. Yikes.

But, like I said, for a local race this was close, nice, and the lake was better than a lot of lakes I've swum in, and the local spectators just hanging out outside their houses cheering were very nice. I'd still probably do this race again. This was only the 2nd time for this race, and I am sure it is improved over last year, and I think the RD is such that it will be even more improved for next year.