Portage Lakes Sprint Triathlon - Akron International Sports Festival - TriathlonSprint

Beach start which went better than I expected. Just made sure I found gaps as I swam past the guys who were still running in the water. It was pretty congested for a while, so I was sighting on every stroke for the first minute to get around people.

Actually it stayed congested for the whole swim. I settled into a decent stroke, but kept needing to go around guys from the first two waves, so I never had a good rhythm going. Others were saying the same thing, and I thought they could have aligned the waves differently to spread it out a little better.

There was one guy on his back doing a breastroke-type kick. I've never seen that before. I discovered this as my hand was this > < close from grabbing his crotch during my stroke! Echh! That was the only time I completely stopped and did a breatstroke for a couple secs.

Otherwise nothing much eventful.

Nothing for this race, but definitely need more training. I was faster this year than last year - thankfully since I had my wetsuit on this time, but not last year!

This time counted towards the swim, but I couldn't find my rip cord coming out of the water and on the beach, so I wasn't running too quick, plus I was pooped! Went okay once I finally got it unzipped and down to my waist.

Got to the bike fine, but did a terrible job getting the suit off my legs. About the only good thing is at least I didn't fall on my butt!

The bike rack was more crowded than when I left before the swim, so now somebody else's bike was over my helmet and shoes - that was aggravating getting that stuff on.

Practice getting my wetsuit off!

The best thing I can say about this ride was it was completely uneventful for once! No drinks spilled all over me, no biker stopped right in front of me to crash into!! (Well there was one guy stopped ahead, but he got out of the way this time).

For some reason though it took me a while to catch my breath at the start of the bike and I didn't get off to a good pace. Finally after a few minutes I settled in and started getting going.

I've worked on cornering lately, so I did a pretty good job with those this time. I would always lay back and ride behind folks going through a corner, but this time I stayed down and hit them more aggresively. Just made sure everyone knew I was coming through!

Due to a duathlon that started in a single wave just before the tri, there were a lot of those bikers on the course already, so there always seemed to be someone to get around.

One guy on a road bike was flying by everyone going up the hills, but then I would have no trouble going by him again. This went on for most of the race. I talked to him afterwards and congratulated him on his riding. He was a 40 year old youngster, so I didn't feel too bad! LOL!! Turns out he spent most of the summer in Maine riding the hills, and this was his best ride ever. Shows what a bit of work can do!

Made sure I thanked every Deputy/Sherriff that I saw holding up the traffic. Especially after I read that the Annapolis Triathlon (that I was originally going to be at today) was canceled because they couldn't get a permit for the bike leg in one of the counties.

Need more work on the hills. I was very comfortable on the flats and stayed in aero the whole time in those sections, but once the hills hit, I was only average compared to the bikes around me. Living where I do means that should be a strength.

Need more work overall anyway to get my speed up.

Lots of space on the rack to work with when I got back, so no issues. Got going alright.

Work on getting off the bike faster.

Blah.

I knew this wouldn't go very good, so just kept saying to myself to just run at my own pace. I did this run 4:30 faster last year, so it was kind of tough to swallow watching everyone blow by. But I felt my hamstring with every step, so there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Did have a nice view of a couple runners so I used one as my pacer... :P

One guy in his 60's with a limp, and scraping his right shoe with every stride passed me, and I thought, "this is just ridulous." Another older guy would walk and I would catch up, then he would take off again, this went on over and over. I think he was using me to time when he should run/walk.

Finally at the 3 mi mark, I decided wasn't going to let the limping guy beat me, so I picked up the pace and went by him and a couple others. I did it early enough that I didn't have to sprint too hard at the end. Quite an accomplishment that I can beat someone who limps!

Need to get my hamstring to heal up, then do more speed work training.

Walked around and ate. Stayed under the tent as the rain came.


Poor training.


I knew what to expect with this race since I did it last year. They call it a festival, but I think that's more to do with the 3 races they do on Saturday, rather than that there's much else going on here.

Two things I didn't like were how the waves were aligned at the start. That could have easily been better.

The other was the drink stations. I knew there wouldn't be one on the bike, so that's life. Could be tough if you're doing the Olympic though. The run was just silly though. One station was at the exit of T2, and the other was 0.1 miles later (which you passed again just before the finish). So the drinks were at 0, 0.1, and 3.0 miles! Not much good in that. The Olympic was at 0, 0.1, 3.0, and 6.1. Hmmm...

I think it was because they were way down on volunteers this year. I remember a lot more last year. And these were manned by an adult with a few kids (8-12 years). The kids were actually great - very enthusiastic, which was fun to see. I didn't even mind when the one who said he had water, actually gave me a cup of Heed!! LOL!