Cornhusker State Games Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This was a pretty good swim. They advertised it as 1000m but on the official results they are calling it 750m, so we'll assume they know what they're talking about. You'd think they could drive in a boat with a GPS and get a decent figure on these OWS swims and adjust the buoys accordingly! All night tonight I was wondering if I cut it short somehow because they had orange sighting buoys halfway and then big white Red Bull buoys where we actually turned.

I drafted a little bit this race! First time in the last 3 races, man alive.

My time includes approx 100 yard run to the T-area before we crossed any timing mat.

I need to get more guts to stick with the fasties in the front, then just use their wake to keep my "comfortably hard" pace. Whenever I try to draft someone in the MOP I run up on them. I could stay behind them and get free energy, but I'd rather get free speed and use more energy from the guys in front. I will make that a priority at the Black Squirrel this year.

This was faster than yesterday's T1, despite a longer transition area! That's cool. Probably because I remembered to leave my race belt unplugged this time ;) Also I put one sock and one shoe on, then put my helmet on to release some of the dizziness of being bent over, and then did the other. I think that helped a little too.

Maybe helmet first? Ultimately though, clipless pedals so I don't have to fool around with shoes/socks until T2.

"Below average" on the hills due to fatigue from yesterday. The bike is when I really started to feel the effect of yesterday's race. I liked that long downhill on 56th street heading North to Normal Blvd, that was nice. I was riding 26-29mph on that baby every time, keeping it up there even on the flat part. Stayed seated the first lap because I hadn't ridden this course before so I wanted to get a feel for when I'd need to stand up. Stood up on the second and third laps just like yesterday and it was a good strategy for me. I'd say this course is about 90% as hard as Papillion. There's more flat area on this one than Papillion due to the 56th street part.

Oh also, I LOVED the spectator-lined descent past the transition area! That was really fun!

I took a frozen watter bottle with me to the race and it was mostly melted by the time I was on the bike. I forced myself to start drinking even though I didn't feel thirsty and I'm glad that I did. Put down maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of the bottle. This same strategy worked yesterday so that's why I put it into practice today!

Clipless pedals. Yesterday I stuffed my shoelaces into my shoe after I got on the bike, this time I did it in T1 [which, now that I think of it, should have added time to my transition but apparently it didn't!] Both times, though, it must've come out while pedaling and got caught in the chain because both times I had to stuff one long lace back down into my shoe to keep from getting tied up in the chain and fraying my laces. My old shoes have super small laces for that reason but I need my new ones to run in so that's what ya get.

Longer than yesterday due to a) longer transition area, and b) taking three steps in the wrong direction before heading the right way out to the run! D'oh! This time though I un-snapped my helmet while I was pushing my bike into the transition area. This saved valuable tenths of seconds.

Not go the wrong way! This makes two of 5 triathlons where I've done that! Fastest T2 of my AG and tied with 3 others for 2nd fastest OA. I'm telling you, I'm the T2 master! Fastest T2 was 27 seconds, so I have some room for improvement next year :)

Somehow my race number tore from the button that my race belt uses to hold it on, so I just stuffed the corner into my pants in hopes that they'd still be able to figure out who I was. I was on that edge again today of calf cramps - even closer than yesterday which is surprising. I fought them off though! I decided I'd run until I HAD to stretch and they went away! I think that sipping Gatorade all last night and this morning really helped with that. I did the same thing Friday night/Saturday morning too and it worked. I'm shocked that I didn't just freeze up though, all things considered. While on the bike I watched this guy just sit there and draft for probably 2 miles. He had a 35 on his calf so it didn't really affect me AG-wise, but it was so blatant that I had a hard time not saying something outright rude to him. He was about 10 yards behind me on the run and he never did catch me. What a loser. Before the race they explicitly said there's a 3 bike gap requirement - NO drafting! ugh. Anyway, I got passed by plenty of folks as is the protocol for my runs. This guy with a 23 on his calf surged ahead of me after the "1 mile" water stop. They said it was "about a mile out", hence the quotations. I decided to counter his move so I pulled up next to him and just ran with him. He picked it up a little bit [I'm not sure if he realized it] but I stayed with him stride for stride, hoping I was too close to him for comfort. Then he backed off and I kept that pace until after the turn-around. Talk about painful - you run uphill for probably half a mile to get to the turn-around on top of the dam! What the heck?! Beth says it's because they're masochists. I agree.

Anyway, I was keeping about a 15 yard lead on my fellow AG competitor and whenever someone would come up next to me I'd match their pace, only to find out it wasn't him trying to make another move :) Finally another guy in my AG with a giant tattoo on his back did pass me and I tried to match his pace but he was too fast for me. Looking at the results I think he ran a 22 minute 5K. With about 200 yards to go and no real desire to push any harder ANOTHER guy from my AG comes up with a 23 on his calf. I pick up the pace and we're on crushed limestone so you can hear everyone's feet crunching who you're running near, and he obviously heard my cadence quicken. He glanced back and saw it was me trying to hang tough so he picked it up. I said, out loud, "Oh no you don't, buddy!" and really pushed hard. He ended up outsprinting me to the finish-I simply had nothing left. In the finishing chute he and I were heaving and ho-ing big time and I came up and shook his hand, congratulating him. He didn't say anything but I know he was glad for the challenge. When we started racing the people lining the chute started cheering louder and louder because they liked to see a little action, so that made me feel good even if it was short-lived.

Not race the day before? Really, run training, run training, run training. Stupid injuries. DON'T INCREASE YOUR MILEAGE TOO QUICKLY!!! Learn from my mistake!

I honestly can't believe this is a true 5K distance - this is an insane pace for me to be running that after one and two-thirds of sprint triathlons. If it is the true distance then I'm just elated with my run pace. This puts me 14 seconds off my open 5K PR pace!

Heaving and ho-ing in the finisher chute while I got my chip removed by one of the nice volunteers. Walked over to the goodie tent where I ate probably two hole oranges [quartered, of course!], half an apple, half a banana, drank a whole G2 and a whole bottle of water. I stretched a little bit while Brynnie held me up - she got there with about 10 min. to spare. She had to run 15 miles this morning! I was so sweaty it was unbelievable. It was like yesterday morning when I saw Jim [trophytaker] return to the transition area soaking wet and I asked him [completely serious], "How was the water?" "Dunno, haven't been in yet. I just went for a quick run." Whoops! Sorry bud!


Racing the day before and everything I mentioned in the "do differently" fields. I'm very pleased with my performance today! If I were in the 25-29AG I'd have been 9th place instead of 12th, so I'm sort of looking forward to that next year!


This really was a great event. From the check-in to the post-race food provided by TNT [burgers, cookies, chips, soda, etc], I am really glad I did this race. If you're on the fence about this one or Papillion I say to heck with Papillion! But that's just me. Plenty of volunteers, plenty of spectators, plenty of post-race food. The two things they need to work on are 1) getting me my packet [still don't have it, Beth said they mailed hers to her] and 2) TRASH CANS! I seriously could not find ANY when I was done with my drinks.