Lone Star Triathlon Festival - Quarter - TriathlonOlympic

Well, I still live up to my old self of just not being able to transfer well to open water. This is in salt water, though on the other side of the island so no real waves. Though we did get some random rouge waves in sets of 3, but they weren't big.. just made me feel worse.

The start, wasn't too good, I was kinda off too the side but it seemed I was instantly in the middle after the start. So that didn't help much. Then we rounded the first bouy and it was pretty clear after that. I gave up a little bit of time by swimming a bit on the far side of things, but I just wasn't feeling great, not sure why. I hadn't taken in any water, or hardly any at all. I guess it could of been sea sickness, but I've never had that before in swims, and this was a pretty calm swim.

So whatever.. I kinda just fell into my let's get this done and on to the next thing groove. Which happens to be a fairly slow pace. I thought I was going to come in at like 20min by the way I felt, so I was actually a bit happy to see 17:15 when I hit land.

Just swim harder and ignore how my gut feels.

So you get out of the water and you're 200m or so from transition and they have a little section for wetsuit strippers on the way to transition. So I get mine down to my waist while I'm running towards them. Then when I get there I pick two cute girls and say 'strip me down', they giggle, and 1 second later I'm running back towards transition, feeling a bit better. I may suck at swimming but I can atleast make high school girls giggle. I then get to my stuff and I opted not to have shoes already clipped on so tossed my shoes on and took off. Good transition, the biggest thing here is running faster.

Run Faster.

Fairly calm winds for what has been around here lately.. so 10-13mph is like a calm day now.

I had a good bike, though I'm not sure how.. I never had any sort of rhythm. I'd go 22 for 5min then go 24 for 5min and feel the same, in the same directions, it was odd. Besides the two guys that passed me in the first two miles I never got passed and probably rode more on the left hand side than on the right. Due to the fact that there were also HIM people on their 2nd loop and I was the 4th wave in the qtr. Drank everything I had on me and took 1 gel. Guess that's it, like I told a teammate when he asked a question about something from the bike leg. I said I have no idea, I was just riding.

If I could of been a bit more steady, I think that would of helped.

Also while 404s are nice I think a rear disc would of been nicer, and while I'm at it a aero helmet. :)

So I go into transition I'm looking for a 35-40 second time here. I get behind a guy who goes down my row too and apparently he needs to rest because he wasn't moving too fast. I say, not too rudely, gotta move faster than this!. Well he just turned to rack his bike so I went by him. Arrived at my spot put my bike on, it was a bit crooked but OK, but then slipped while I was putting shoes on so I had to re-rack it. Then took off for the run and hoping for no cramps.

Not get behind slow poke and rack bike neatly.

OK, now this was FUN, even if the Navy Boys kicked my butt. so I head out of transition with three guys from the Navy Collegiate Tri Team all in my age group. I thought to my self, ok I got these chumps, the run is my stomping grounds. I don't remember saying it out loud, but they must of heard because at that moment one lifted the pace. We all went to follow, one of their guys dropped off and it was 3 of us. Two minutes later the other navy guy lets him go and so do I, as there was no way I could keep contact with him for 6 more miles. So those next 6 miles were of me staring at this Navy guys butt from 10m back. I pulled my self back up to him twice hoping to keep with him, each time he'd pull ahead again.

I was planning a final move at the 6mile mark, but miles 3-5.5 my left quads started to cramp. So I was thinking, crap after trailing this guy by 10-15m for the entire run I'm going to have to let him drop me. I ended up hanging tough and they went away. The 6 mile marker came and I lifted my pace (I actual felt pretty good) I was going to catch this guy, I said to my self. Once again.. he must of heard me because before I even snuck up on him, he did exactly what I did. So over the next half mile we stayed the same distance apart all the while I was lifting the pace.

Our run times were 3 seconds different. :\

Maybe try a move early on and gamble it a bit, besides that I ran solid.

9th in my age group for the run.. THAT just doesn't happen.. lol my age group was so stacked. ;p

None, I hurt like heck and I wasn't doing anything like running.

Talked to some of the Navy Triathletes and my fellow teammates.

On a side Note if you do a race and you're 20-24 and you see the Navy Collegiate Team at the race, you're screwed. In any other age group I would of been first or 2nd. In my age group I was 10th. Though gotta give props to them, they were freaking fast.. their top guy finished in 1:59 on a Qtr.. that's pretty damn good.


Open Water.




I don't think you find better put on races than this, this is top of the line and I expect this race to grow and grow. Already getting top notch pros in it's 2nd year.