Moses Lake Family Tri: For the Health of It - TriathlonOlympic

I felt good with my swim given my relatively low training volume and recent shoulder pain. I actually faired better than I had expected. I liked swimming parallel to the shoreline, I was better able to sight. I was able to draft on the fourth length, that really is helpful.

I saw Lisa next to me at one point and said hi to her. I spotted her because she had a pink cap under her purple cap and I saw the pink sticking out.

My shoulder stayed loose and I was happy about that :)

Keep building volume/base in training. Keep up drills.

I felt very dizzy coming out of the water so I walked/barely jogged to transition. The distance to T1 was short, AWESOME. Dropped my cap, turned around to pick it up (why?). I only had one arm out of my wetsuit when I arrived in transition...it was a short distance, after all. Got the top and first leg out fine. Second heel got hung up and I bent over to pull it off. Almost tipped over (still dizzy). Then it occurred to me to use the rack for support and step out of the suit, that worked great.

Lisa said hello. Ann was in transition also and we said hi. We all made it out of the water!

Put on glasses, helmet, socks and shoes, and was off.

Is there a trick to ending the dizzines sooner. Does practicing going from swimming to running over and over help? I'll give that a try.

I want to work on transitions more and get my time down on them.

My plan was to right at 18 MPH out and push it up a notch on the way in. (It's an out and back course). I followed my plan all the way to the park exit. When I hit the road, the headwinds hit me! The ride out was a workout and slow, bummer. My average speed at 11 miles was 12.34 MPH, ouch. I kept hoping that we would catch the tailwind on the way back in and we did! The ride back was FUN, FUN, FUN!!! My max speed on the downhill was 41 MPH. (The fastest woman's speed was 45.something and the men's was 47.something) My bike computer shows an average overall speed of 17 MPH (but that was after I walked it to the car at the end of the race). When splits come out tomorrow, we'll see what my pace was.

It was fun to see Lisa, Ann, Lynne, Leslie, Tory, and my TeamFastt teammates during the bike. Leslie's been training hard and faithfully all winter and it showed today! She was well on her way back in while I was riding out. That meant she had a fast swim and a fast bike! Yeah Leslie! Ann was smoking fast on the way back in. She passed me and was out of my sight in no time flat. It was beautiful to see! Ann rocks!

Do more hill training, although I did pass three people on the climbs, so I was surprised and pleased with that.

I am contemplating adding aerobars.

I did not jump off my moving bike. I was slow going into transition. The in and out was at the same gate and it was narrow. A couple burleymen sprint racers were coming out so I yielded before going into transition.

My left foot was still numb (likely due to cold). My socks were damp so I decided to change socks.

Practice jumping off moving bike.

I stopped at the park restrooms about 50 yards out of the transition area. Good idea. Added time but removed the distraction of thinking about needing to go while finishing the race.

I am feeling only ok about my run. I kept my HR at 160. And only let it go above after I got back into the park. I slowed down in the last 1.5 miles to maintain the 160 (80%), maybe I could have allowed it to go up to 170? But this was my first oly and I wanted to be sure to finish strong so I played it cautious.



I haven't been using my HR monitor during training, the strap battery had died. Should have replaced it. I wasn't sure how hard I would be able to push myself and for how long.

Turned around and ran back to meet Lynne to finish the race with her. I didn't know until I met up with her, but she had fallen on the bike while riding through some sand or ash and was suffering with a very sore knee. (I hit that spot, or similar spot, too while biking and went slip-sliding and fishtailing, fortunately did not go down).

We ran/walked to the finish together.

I think I got just over 4 more miles of running.


First race of the season, first olympic distance, so I was probably more tentative and cautious. I hope my shoulder continues to improve and that I can increase my pace.


I missed when the AG awards were handed out while I was doing my cooldown run. When I came back, Bob gave me my 3rd place medal. Wow! My first AG award. It was a 2008 Nationals qualifier, so technically, I guess I can compete at the Nationals in September in Portland.

The volunteers at this race are so great, there was a group of girls at one corner of the run who did very motivating cheers! The water station women were so kind and personable. Thank you Moses Lake! I'll be back.

Most awesome moment, I went to get some post-race food. The woman at the station asked me how I did, I looked at her and said "Pretty good, I won an award in my age group for the first time ever" and my eyes fell on the dragonfly necklace she was wearing. For my friends that know me, the dragonfly has a very special meaning to me since my sister Nanette passed away. My sister was at my first triathlon ever, and that dragonfly necklace reminded me that she was celebrating with me at my first olympic ever and first AG finish ever today as well.