DQ Triathlon at Marlton Lakes - TriathlonSprint

Once again, bane of my efforts. I'd had a very specific plan: swim 18-21 strokes as a "set", breathing every three and taking as long to breathe as I needed while kicking on my side or sweet spot. After each of those sets I'd planned to backstroke or scull to get my breath down. I got the first "set" done but I think I wasn't getting enough breath after every three strokes because I was out of breath. Only did 12 or so strokes on the second set because I ran into somebody, backstroked and sculled for a while until I could breathe comfortably through my nose, looked to see where I was and I'd gone outside the buoy line, had to swim back towards it. Don't think I strung together any more than 9-10 consecutive strokes after that. I'd also wanted to focus on certain "swim thoughts": keep the head tucked, do the catch-up, high elbow catch, etc. For some reason I couldn't keep my mind focused on any of that. I wouldn't say I was necessarily uncomfortable during the swim, just incompetent and annoyed and frustrated with my lack of ability here.

Familiar refrain: I don't really know what to do anymore short of taking lessons. I keep waiting for that aha! moment, now and then I think I'm getting close to it, but nothing. There's just no good reason this swim should've taken this long; it was almost two minutes longer than last year. What's worse is it's only about 20 seconds shorter than two years ago, my first OWS, when I did nothing but dog paddle. Now how does that make sense? Ridiculous.

Longer than I was hoping for, although it's a good run from the swim exit into transition. Had to hop around to get the suit bottom off; had the top off before I even passed the chip-reading device out of the water. And the suit seems to get stuck on the chip; this has happened in every race. Even the stepping and pulling doesn't quite work. Also took some time to wipe off my face. Decided to go ahead and strap my shoes. I discovered that I'd not turned on the Garmin before the race, so it was searching for a satellite when I left T1.

Practice getting the wetsuit off is probably the main thing. I probably would've been under three minutes if I hadn't gotten my heels stuck. Putting on the Garmin probably cost some time. I don't really refer to it on the bike, so maybe in the future I just use that for the run to watch my pace.

Actually fairly pleased with this result; I expected worse because I got caught up in a pack of riders and basically stuck with them the whole way through. The first mile or so I wanted to keep it in the small ring and just spin to get acclimated, then kick it into high gear when Kettle Run Rd merged with another road about a mile into the course. This group of riders passed me during that first mile and I caught up when I shifted to the big ring. Never could get around but maybe a couple of them, and that took a while, becaust we were all bunched up. I tried not to draft and crowd, so that held me up a little and I actually had to coast on several occassions so as not to get all bunched up with them. At times there were bikes four and five wide across the lane, so no way to get around without going across the divider. Then a couple of cars got caught up with us; a beat up Ford Tempo was the worst, running right up behind us, trying to go around, coming back into our lane when a car would come from the other direction, messing all of us up. In the end I just hung with this group and passed folks when they did because it seemed like they were maintaining a pretty decent pace. I had no idea what that pace was because I noticed in the first mile that my computer wasn't giving me a speed readout; I'd forgotten to check that after installing the wheel before the race. I also noticed my front brakes were "light" because I'd forgotten to retighten the caliper lever after installing the wheel. Very stupid on both counts, seems I can't remember much on race day anymore. I went back to high cadence in the small ring about a mile from the finish and loosened my shoes and pulled my feet out so I wouldn't have to mess with that in T2. Overall a decent ride; I listed the race pace as hard because it was a little tougher than comfortable, but it wasn't uncomfortable either. For the most part I felt pretty good throughout. It was nice to have the aero bottle available too so I could drink, and the GU flask.

I stayed in the big ring most of the race, which I hadn't planned on doing, but I'm glad I did now. I'm not a real aggressive rider; just not comfortable with that on the tri bike and riding blind on the left side. But I think there were spots when I could've pushed it a little to get out of the pack I was in. Not sure how much difference it would've made overall.

I gave myself a below average on racking the bike because I missed my spot! I couldn't remember exactly where it was, then saw TSW cheering me on and figured she was standing by my rack. When I got to her she said, "Babe, you're back there somewhere!" Crap! Got the bike racked easy, I was already out of my bike shoes, running shoes went on easy. Took a few seconds to switch the Garmin over to run.

Except for missing my spot and having to backtrack I thought I was pretty efficient. I put the racebelt on as I was moving.

Disappointed here and actually a little surprised at the result. This wasn't bad run, just not what I wanted to do. I honestly thought I might beat thirty minutes, I feel like I should have. I had a very definitive plan for this run. I wanted to go out slow, real slow...I'd planned for 10:45 pace for the first half mile, wanted to get there at about 5:20 or so. I took that approach because I didn't wnat to blow myself up too soon (what I felt was a problem in previous races), wanted to get my legs moving at a pace that was very comfortable and left me with something in the tank for the later part of the run. Every time I looked at the Garmin, it showed I was running around a 10 minute pace or faster. And yet when I got to the half mile mark I was around 5:20, which is where I should've been at a 10:45 pace; it didn't make sense, plus I wasn't as comfortable as I wanted to be...it's like I ran faster than I'd planned and got no benefit from it. From that point I wanted to maintain that 10:00 pace and reach the turnaround at around 15:20, and I was pretty close to that. I kept that up through the two-mile water stop, but the Garmin was reading an under 10 minute pace continuously. I stepped it up a little from there and, according to the Garmin, I was under 9:30 from 2.5 to 2.75, and close to 9:00 through to the finish. And somehow, overall, I still finished with a pace of just over 10:00/mile, about :20/mile slower than last year.

More run training, I guess. I'm thinking next season I need to train for the run as if I'm going to be doing Oly distance tris. I gotta believe I can do sub-10:00 on a regular basis, but it just doesn't seem to be happening.

Not much...grabbed some water and Gatorade and walked around a bit, went to the rest room. Partook of some of the post-race goodies, checked the prelim results, packed up and left.


Another lousy swim performance and a run that came up short of plan. My swimming is very vexing. While I certainly don't participate in these events with hopes of winning or even getting close to it, and while I'm pleased to have elevated my performance, such as it is, to the point where I'm near the "front of the BOP", there's still a desire to do better. Actually the desire manifests itself more in the hankering one day to take on a longer challenge, like an Oly and the dream of trying a real Half Iron. But until the day arrives when I can swim better than I'm doing now - and I'm still talking swimming slow, at maybe 2:00/100y - those are just pipe dreams.


I really like this race. I'm partial to it because it was the first one I ever did two years ago, but it's just a good time and the DQ people do a nice job. The venue is kind of unusual, so much of it taking place in a residential neighborhood, making it kind of "homespun" and "casual", but I like that part of it. I was surprised to see the number of participants was "only" 363; I thought they had almost 400 sign up, and the number was 22 short of last year's field. Things were a little harried at the beginning, during packet pick-up, because there are so many of us. Last year I got my packet the night before so I didn't have to mess with the crowd at pre-race. The other DQ races this year were smaller fields so that part went much smoother.