Columbia Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Although slow by anyone else's standards, this was my best swim ever. In pool practice I had been doing the 1500 M in 38-40 minutes, so I was pleased. The temperature of the water didn't bother me too much. It felt like I sighted extremely well. The only problem I had was that the zipper came down about halfway through the swim. I tried for a second to get it back up, but gave up and just kept swimming.

Nothing, other than be more certain my zipper is up.

Felt really good getting out of the water. I was able to jog to my spot, suit came off cleanly. This was my first transition putting bike shoes on, so I was pleased. True to the spirit of the Columbia course, you go up a hill to exit transition.

Nothing.

My bike time is off, I was one of the group that was stopped for the accident out on the loop. First few miles I felt awful, but maintained a pretty good speed. At the sharp turn leading to the southern part of the loop, a course worker shouted "Slow down, you'll be stopping up ahead". A mile or so ahead, sure enough, there was a group of 20 or so people stopped in the road. We heard there had been a bad accident up ahead, and that a helicopter was coming in to pick up the cyclist. I don't know exactly how long we waited, but it felt like between 15-20 minutes. At that point there were probably about a hundred of us. Another mile down the road, just over the crest of a hill, another pack of 100 cyclists stopped in the road....turned out there had been a miscommunication so we were held again for a few minutes. This definitely made the rest of the bike interesting. Several hundred people trying to get clipped in and moving at the same time, followed by lots of passing. I felt really good for the rest of the ride, although my quads started acting up the last couple of hills.

Nothing. Getting someone the medical attention they need is about a thousand times more important than my bike split.

Again, I was really happy with my transition. First time having to change shoes in T2, it wasn't a problem. No holdups, even had time to blow a kiss to my wife.

Nothing.

In practice my best time for this course was 1:04, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this wasn't as good. I had some knee and back pain throughout, but fortunately my quad issue on the bike never really developed during the run. I actually felt pretty good for large portions of the run, but obviously it's because I was going so slow. As I came in to finish my wife handed our daughter off to me, so we could finish together. I'm looking forward to my finishing photo!

Be a better runner. I hate running, have never been good at it, so I'm running the Marine Corps Marathon in October to either get better or realize I should stick to cycling.

Gave my daughter back to my wife. Had some water and got packed up. Returned home for beer and meat products.


Running ability. With the swim and bike I was pleased with my effort. Without the stoppage I think I could have finished somewhere between 3:10 and 3:20.


A fantastic event, and great support which I wanted for my first Olympic distance. Very tough overall, I'm looking forward to a nice, flat course in Chicago this August.