Heart of the Lakes Triathlon - TriathlonLong Course

This swim was ok. Navigation was an issue because I couldn't see very well. I actually did some decent drafting off a woman who swam right along side me all the way out. She got ahead of me at the turn around since she had an inside line around the buoys, so I stayed right on her feet almost the whole way in. She had a bright yellow tri suit on, so I could actually see her pretty well in the water. Once we were about 50 yards out from shore, I thought "thanks for the draft!" and swam by her to the beach. :)

Wear different goggles so I could actually see the buoys. Go out harder. Like last year, I head back too much on this swim for fear of the bike and run ahead. I managed to swim about 8 seconds faster than last year, but that's it.

Pretty uneventful transition. It's quite a long run from the beach to the T area so that makes for a long transition. No real issues with anything; just got the wetsuit off, but shoes, suglasses, and helmet on, and off I went.

Turns out the lady in the yellow tri suit (who ran right by me on the way to T1, of course :) ) was racked right next to me.

Nothing

I believe this is the first time I've ever averaged above 18 mph on the bike, so I'm happy about that. I know this is a fast course and everyone probably had a good day on the bike with the lack of wind, but still, I'm happy. :)

Again, nothing remarkable here. I managed to not drop my water bottle at the beginning of the ride like I did last year, so that was good. ha ha I just pedalled on my merry way, getting passed by people all the time, as usual. I tried to focus on my own goal rather than getting flustered by getting passed. I saw that I was creeping up on 18 mph average during the first half of the ride, so my goal was to keep that for the rest of the way. I did it, but I was pushing hard at the end to do it in the slower, bike-and-runner-congested sections. I was afraid I'd pay for that on the run. Overall this ride was about five minutes faster than last year's.

Not drink so much before the race. I had to go to the bathroom before the race even started, but by midway through the bike, I *really* had to go.

My plan was to rack the bike and helmet, change the shoes, and hit the port-a-john on the way out of T2. The first part went fine, but I just couldn't bring myself to take the time to use the port-a-john. So I ran right by it and headed out on the run. Not smart.

I also decdied that since it had been overcast all morning to not wear my hat or sunglasses on the run. No need to restrict any air flow around my broiling head if not necessary. In hindsight, also not smart.

Use that port-a-john!! All I could think about on the run is how badly I had to go to the bathroom. And bring at least the sunglasses, if not the hat.

On the bright side, this was 37 seconds faster than last year's T2. I think my rack was in pretty close to the same spot as last year, so that is a nice improvement.

Well, this pretty much blew. My legs were tired and I really needed to use the bathroom. And of course, about a half mile or so into the run, the sun came out. Natch. So I was all distracted, squinty, and crabby. (I was a regular ray of sunshine at this race, as was accurately pointed out by JoeR. :) ) And at about the 4.5 mile mark, the IT band decided to join the fun-fest. Yippee! I slogged my way through, and tried to finish strong, but the IT band was very unhappy at that point. This run was about a minute slower than last year's.

The bathroom, the sunglasses, and the hat, for starters. And growing some new legs would help too.

Walked, water, watermelon, stretched, watermelon (love that stuff!), gatorade.

Brought my stuff to the car and grabbed my cooler o' potato salad for the BT picnic. Lots of yummy food and good company with the crew.


Not nearly enough sleep, low energy start, the bathroom thing, the IT band thing. Oh, and of course, my weight. :)


This is such an nice race with fantastic give aways. I really like the course and this was about a 4.5 minute improvement over last year's time. And it's always nice when there is a good BT turnout. :)