Hawk Island Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This was my best tri swim yet. I know I can improve on it too. It was a running start, but chip timed, so I held back just a hair. As a result, I missed the draft opportunity on the fish. I drafted for just a moment about the halfway point, but the guy was too slow. After that, I just broke out on my own.

Navigation was excellent. Loosing sight of the bottom didn't spook me either. SWEET VICTORY, got that monkey off my back!

Breathing was a little too frequent towards the end. I needed to just chill and lengthen my glide. I started too far back and lost my opportunity to draft. Otherwise, fantastic swim. Far beeter than past performances.

third fastest in my AG, I'll take that!

nothing

Pretty decent bike. I averaged 20+, just barely, but I did. There were two pacelines that I saw, and no officials out on the bike course. I refused to do it, and played leapfrog was a strong riding roadie. He and I chatted with each pass. It was mainly a closed course, so that eleviated some stress of traffic. I could just concentrated on the right gears and the right effort at the right times.

I struggled just a little getting my right foot into the shoe, but it didn't really cost me any time. This was my first race with a barefoot start. I had only practiced it a little bit, but it worked okay and saved a long distance of cleat footed running.

Otherwise, I wouldn't change much from the bike. It was the best bike split and pace for me in a race.

Lost my balance a little while getting shoes on. I didn't cost me any time though. Just a little concentration. Eleventh fastest in my age group. I'm not sure what I could do differently, other than run faster through t-area I guess.

Nothing.

This was a good run for me. I've never run sub-8 in a race. I guess this would be a PR 5k for me, except I've never raced a stand alone 5k. It took me a couple minutes to get a good breathing pattern back, off the bike. After that, I could just concentrate on good balance, cadence, and try to slowly lengthen the stride. It took a while, but I finally started to stretch out the stride with just about a mile left. FINALLY!!! I was passed by two guys in my AG earlier in the run and they were long gone. Just as I was starting to lengthen out the stride, another came by me. I stuck on his right pocket and we both picked it up. With about 200 left, I started to slowly pull up, and then with 100 I was even. Then I gave it everything I had left. I shot by him. WOW did that feel great.

Force myself to lengthen the stride earlier. I was tentative in that respect. I waited until I felt ready, instead of just doing it and seeing if I could handle it.

Gasp for air, as trix kept saying, "Why are you gasping?"

"I just finished a race lady!" :) Thanks for caring trix.

Hung out and cheered on a great group of BT'ers. That was my highlight of the day. Thanks to all that participated. Brickey, SweetP, Sushigirl, Pegasus, khamilton, jogo, shorty and her dad, travelmonkey, sundevil, shoot I know I'm forgetting others.


Little to no speed work. I pretty much took off two weeks within the last month. I'll be working on that. :)


Great first timer course. Very clean orderly set up. Nice place. I'll be back next year for my MI opener.

One last thing that I forgot to add. I never watched the clock. I started a basic HRM beforehand, and watched my speed on the garmin, but I never looked at my splits, or my pace when running. In fact, I hardly even looked at the hrm except for when I felt I was pushing on the bike, and at the beginning of the run. That's it. I think it did wonders for my mental state. When I crossed the line, after a minute or two, I showed trix the HR. 199 :)