Buffalo Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

I went off in the 4th wave so luckily didn't have too long to wait. Lined up on the outside of the front row and found clear water within the first 100yd or so. I'm a bilateral breather in the pool, but for whatever reason that just wasn't working for me, so I quickly settled into a routine breathing to the left every stroke and sighting every 3. Soon enough I started to catch some people from the waves in front of me, but they were pretty spread out so navigating around wasn't much of a problem. There was a minor traffic jam at the first turn buoy so I had to swing fairly wide to get around.

Things got a little more interesting on the way back in. There was a ton of traffic after the sprint course joined back up and people were zig-zagging all over the place. I seemed to be holding a straight enough line toward the swim exit so I just dodged the bodies the best that I could and kept going.

This was only my 3rd open water swim ever and my first this season so I really didn't know what to expect. My only other experience at this distance was a non-wetsuit 29:xx at Turtleman last year, so I was very happy when I glanced down at my watch running up the beach and saw a 22:xx.

Draft. I spent precisely zero seconds drafting during this swim. Looking at the results I know there were a few faster people in my wave that I could've fallen in behind, but I never saw any of them. Maybe not be so much of a wuss and line up right in the middle at the start.

The transition area at this race is huge, it had to be a solid 250-300yd from the swim exit to my bike. Got the wetsuit off without any difficulty but fumbled around with my helmet for a few seconds (Giro Advantage 2, awesome helmet once it's on, but those earflaps are a serious pain in the ass).

The real adventure started after I crossed the timing mat and jumped on the bike. My bike only allows for one bottle cage, on the seat tube. After seeing David Thompson's aero-bar mounted bottle cage at the Gear West duathlon I decided to give that a try to get a second bottle on my bike. I ended up channeling my inner MacGyver with some electrical tape and rigging up a cage on the stem that holds the bottle horizontal right between the aerobars. It actually worked pretty well in training. So well in fact that for this race I decided to ditch the seat tube cage entirely and just go with the one bottle between the aerobars.

Well, sure enough, just as I'm at the top of the little hill coming out of the park I hit a bump and launched the damn bottle. I ended up having to jump off of the bike and chase the down the bottle, which by now was rolling back down the hill. I eventually caught up to the bottle and hopped back on the bike. I have no idea how much time this all took, probably not much more than 30 seconds or so, but I sure felt stupid chasing after the bottle while dodging all of the other folks coming out of transition.





Not launch the stupid bottle. Although I'm still not sure why that happened. I've ridden a couple hundred miles in training with that setup over way worse roads and never lost one, so maybe this was just bad luck.

Other than the bottle launch incident the bike went well. The conditions were absolutely perfect for riding. There was very little wind, which is a refresing change of pace for this part of the world.

There was a ton of traffic up until the olympic and sprint courses split, but for the most part there was ample room to pass without having to get too close to the centerline.

I came very close to crashing at the turnaround of the out and back section. I basically wasn't thinking straight and came screaming into the turn at full speed. Actually locked up the rear wheel for a little bit while panic-braking, which I've never done before on the tri bike. Somehow I managed to keep it upright and make the turn. Another guy was about 50yd behind me with a front row seat to all of this. He looked like he was having a seriously hard time not laughing out loud when I was coming back the other way.

Again there was a ton of traffic once the sprint course joined back up, but getting around people was never really that difficult.

I was hoping for a 24mph split so I can't complain about 24.5, but without the bottle launch coming out of T1 (this was after the timing mat so any time wasted there is in the bike split, not T1) and the skidding stop at the turnaround I probably could've come in under an hour. Oh well, something to shoot for next time around.

I got out of my shoes about 1/4 mile earlier than I really needed to, but by this time I was already spinning down and thinking about the run anyway, so it probably didn't hurt me. My rack spot was very close to the bike in/out, which was nice.

Not much, seemed to go smoothly enough.

The sprint and oly courses run together for first 1.5 miles, so it was very crowded. It seemed like I was constantly zig-zagging around people. After the sprint turnaround the course felt deserted. There was one guy a couple hundred yards up that I looked to be slowly reeling in, and occasionally I'd see one of the elite wave guys coming back the other way. I tried to give Chris Legh a cheer as he was coming back the other way, but it probably just sounded like I was about to barf or something.

It was all uphill after the sprint turnaround until the oly turnaround, so I just concentrated on keeping my cadence up and putting one foot in front of the other. After the turn I could see that I wasn't alone out there after all, and in fact a lot of those dudes behind me were running really damn fast. That was good motivation to not slack off on the way back in and keep trying to push the pace.

I'd been glancing at my watch periodically througout the run and knew I was on track to obliterate my pre-race goal (sub-2:10). I did some quick math at mile 4 and realized if I could hold pace I'd come in right around 2:05. Pushed it hard all the way through the finish chute to finish with a 39 flat run split.

I can't really complain about the run split given that my only other 10k in a tri was a 44:xx (including a fair amount of walking) last year at Turtleman, so 39:00 is awesome in that context. I feel like there's a ton of run speed left in my legs though, just have to train harder to get it out.

Coming out of the finish chute I grabbed two bottles of water and bee-lined straight for the lake. Waded in up to my waist and just stood there for a good 15 minutes or so.

When I was packing up my transition area I ran into an old buddy of mine from high school, so we spent some time catching up on what we've been up to lately.

Eventually I went back down to the finish area to check the results board. 2nd in my AG, sweet! I stuck around for the awards ceremony and ended up getting an Ipod shuffle. I felt guilty for a couple seconds while claiming my prize knowing that the guys that placed 4,5,6,8,9 and 10 overall would've been in my age group if not for the elite wave, and therefore left with nothing, but that didn't last long. I guess the price you pay for a wave 1 start and primo rack space is that some schmuck that finished a couple minutes behind you gets the Ipod.


Mostly my own stupidity (e.g. launching the water bottle and nearly crashing at the turnaround). Other than that I think I paced it about as well as I possibly could have given my current fitness.


This is a great race. Great organization, nice course and great volunteers! I'll be back for sure next year.