Westchester Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

This was my first oly, the first time I had done an open water swim in salt water, and probably the furthest I have swum away from the shore. As a result I went off in a pretty measured way so that I didn't struggle with the distance. My sighting was much improved over my previous sprint tri at West Point.

As well as needing to generally continue improving my stroke, I think I can afford to push it harder on the swim as although I felt tired when I got onto the bike, I think I could have given it a fair amount more effort. Anyway, had no preconceptions that I would be very fast on the swim and was happy to survive it with no problems.

Felt pretty slow (which it was) 182 overall.

Put helmet on and put tire / cylinder in pocket before putting on shoes. Found that puttting shoes on straight after pulling ankles out of wetsuit wasted time due to loss of balance.

Bike is my strongest activity, however found that I struggled on the first hills as I was probably still cold after the swim and also from the impact of eating the one gel that I had with me on the bike, I might have benefited from a few more calories on the bike.

Take on some more calories.
Ride the course first so that I could get more out of the long descents (i.e. know which corners I didn't need to slow down for) as well as understanding how hard I could push on the climbs - I went easy on Claire's Climb assuming it was going to be much longer and much steeper, in reality I found the earlier hills more challenging.

I nearly made a huge error and took my helmet off the instant I dismounted. I immediately heard the marshalls clarifying between themselves whether I had unfastened the helmet before the line. Luckily they had seen it all correctly, but I shouldn't do this again as had there been more bikes coming in with me they may well not have seen it properly and given me a penalty.
Needed to put calf support on during T2 so lost 20 secs doing this.
418th overall.


Don't be so quick to remove helmet.
Work on riding with feet on top of shoes (have never attempted this)
Try and take on more fluids while running to rack as needed to pause before I went off on the run as needed a little more fluid
Just remembered - take tire and inflation cylinder out of pockets as they don't speed up the run!

Had been suffering from a calf strain and in addition to three PT sessions in the prior 5 days had not actually run for nearly two weeks, and hadn't run 10k for six weeks. As a result had very little expectation for the run. Leg actually felt fine throughout but I was cautious initially and then started running out of gas at the end. Given injury I was happy with 8min split, but really need to work on this as should be able to push much harder on the run.

Don't get injured
Continue working on running pace
Take a gel on the run

Lot of fluid. Pizza and pale ale. Got a massage about two hours after finish.



This was my first oly so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I definitely needed to pace myself more than i did in a sprint as was definitely tired at the end of the run. Also think I need to think a bit more seriously about my nutrition which I think could eke out a bit more speed.


I thought the race was organised really well. On the bike course particularly I thought the Police and volunteers did an outstanding job. Not only did they control the traffic well, but on a couple of occasions I heard really helpful comments such as "rough section right after corner" which I find really helpful and safe. Will be back next year if I can get an entry.