Capital of Texas Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

I was pretty apprehensive about the swim, it being my first Olympic distance, and I haven't done much open water swimming.

The deep water start was actually pretty great: it wasn't crowded at all, and I was able to find some clear water right from the start and get into a good rhythm right away. I set up on the outer left, with some other seeming newbies, and ended up passing a few people in the first couple hundred meters, which felt great.

My sighting actually went pretty well, except for the two or three times I got cocky and kept my head down for twenty strokes and looked up directly at the shore. Don't think I lost too much time, just some dignity.

After the first third I was feeling really good and started to cruise a little bit. My bilateral breathing kinda went out the window, but it's a race, right?, and I felt strong.

This pushing the pace a little felt good at the time, and I was four minutes faster than my goal, but as I ran into transition and got the top of my wetsuit off I noticed that my HR was 174! Way too high! (Average was 146.)

Oh well. The good time (for me) was maybe worth it? Sure felt good to get out of the water that soon (relatively speaking).

I tried to do some drafting but couldn't find the right person. The wave spread out pretty quickly and I was mostly on my own. I think I could be smarter about picking someone out before getting up to the starting line, someone who looks like he's about my level of fitness but a better swimmer, and just shamelessly stalk him and draft away.

The couple times I did find someone it felt SO great, it'd be worth the effort.

Yeah, so I was pretty winded and lightheaded through a lot of this transition, kicking myself for the swim pacing thing. So I really took my time. Obviously.




I could shave a minute off this just by buying a proper tri top to wear under my wetsuit: It's such a pain getting a shirt on over wet skin.

And I should finally start practicing the pre-clipped shoes, riding with feet over shoes at the beginning of the bike. For a minute or two last night I thought about just doing this, but figured it would lead to tragedy having not practiced it. Plus, it was well over a hundred yards, over dirt and then gravel and then asphalt, to the mount line, which would've sucked in socks.

I'd planned to go pretty easy the first lap, ride moderately hard on laps two and three, and then push on the final lap. And I more or less did.

But I had to ride very conservatively the first lap because my heart rate just wouldn't drop down into Zone 2 (see swim comments above). I was gonna just bag it and ride hard but remembered reading someone's Ironman Arizona report on here about doing the bike leg with HR too high and then blowing up on the run. Obviously it's just an Olympic distance, but that stuck with me so I forced myself (as much as I could) to slow down and ride easy. It eventually worked (though my HR never got as low as it usually is at that kind of pace), and I was able to increase my speed on the second and third laps and push a bit in the fourth.

Also, about a third of the way into lap two, right as I was starting to feel pretty good, I slipped my chain. Twice. In a matter of seconds. I sorted it out pretty quickly, but it probably cost me a minute.

Well, I'd get a proper tune up before the race. There's an easy minute.

And I clearly need to work on my speed on the bike, as I got smashed, especially in my age group. These guys are fast. (And have much nicer bikes.)

Well, I was all smart about T1 and counted how many racks from the end my bike was, but I neglected to do the same from the other direction. That's just stupid. So I had a little trouble finding my bikeless rack. Other than that it went pretty smoothly, though slowly.

Well, again, a gear solution: Gotta get those quick laces. It felt like forever lacing up my shoes.

I'll definitely work on riding with my feet on top of my shoes before my next event.

And clearly I'd do a better job of knowing exactly where my rack is.

This was a bit of a disaster. My HR was higher than I'd planned all day, and it just got worse here. The heat was surprisingly brutal, and my HR was pushing Zone 3 right from the start of the run.

My plan was to run the first lap pretty easy, in Zone 2, and then push hard in the second lap. I'd done my bricks this way, and I've been putting in consistent tempo work in my running, and I feel like I've gotten a lot faster since last summer (I've taken almost four minutes off my sprint distance run time in the last year).

Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men, right.

A mile into this run it became clear that I was just gonna have to pace myself and avoid blowing up completely: I felt awful. So I just put one foot in front of the other, made sure to drink and douse myself at every station, and hoped for the best.

The second lap I felt even worse, so I walked the aid stations, put some ice under my hat, anything I could do to feel on top of things. Then in the last half mile or so I picked up the pace a bit, just for my own pride.

I need to pace myself more effectively in the swim and the bike.

And then the heat: Waddya do to prepare for that? Wear a sweatshirt on your long runs? Jog in a sauna?

Or maybe just pick a first Oly that isn't in Austin in May? : )

I was pretty spent after this race. Which is great (the sprint I did in April felt like nuthin, which is great in it's own way, and clearly means I could have pushed harder).

Really I just sort of wandered around the incredibly packed finish area, drank water, waited for my HR and body temp to come down a bit, ate a little, drank more water, rested in the shade.


Well, I need to spend more money. Ha ha.

But seriously, I think I'm getting to the point, a couple years in, where I need to make some investments: a real tri top and those quick laces first of all. And I need to make some upgrades to the bike, which I love and has been great, but is definitely a beginner's ride. New wheels are in order this summer. Maybe some clip-on aero bars. And a proper fit and full tune-up by a real bike shop.

On the training front: I haven't really done a lot of speed work on the bike or in the pool, frankly. Plenty of volume, but not much intensity (as opposed to the run training, which I think has been really balanced). I think that limited by ability to (a) swim at a steady pace (with some cruising) without blowing out my HR, and (b) ride fast on the bike.

Both of these shortcomings (combined with the heat) ultimately undercut my run, which theoretically is my strength.


This was my first big event (over a thousand participants), and it was really fun and exciting, and fairly well organized. Bike check-in the day before was great, and the registration process went smoothy (for me). And everything went well the day of, up until transition closed.

I think there was some miscommunication about people being able to warm up in the water prior to the first wave going out, which delayed the lifeguards getting out on the water, which delayed the start by a solid 15 minutes. And then maybe some overzealous planning, thinking that a wave would go off every three minutes: It was more like five or six. So my wave went off VERY late.

Which is a drag.

The race itself--the courses, the volunteers, aid stations, events afterwards--was top notch, I thought. I had a great time. And would do it again. If it were 1000 miles north or held in September.

It's hot in Austin!