Emerald Pointe Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Started off the left side BOP of the wave. I knew this was just going to be a "get-it-over-with" swim since I had had not been in water since Aug. 1. Ended up that I enjoyed this swim and really stayed relaxed. I did not put pressure on myself to perform well with this portion of the race given my lack of swim training since the Cordele race.

Find a pool.....or find a way to sneak into Gordon College's aquatic center. The swim is always my slowest of the 3....until I dedicate training, I can expect the same performance.

Ran up from the beach to try and save time....passed about 10-11 people that were walking (I paid for this though with a high heartrate). No problem finding my rack and getting my shoes on. My darn shirt got stuck on my back as I was pulling it on. Probably used 20 seconds just getting untangled. Helmet went on pretty well and I was off.

I have to find a better way to get this shirt on....maybe put some lube on the shirt prior to the race. Even better, put on a front zip cycling jersey.

I felt like I was really pushing myself on the bike portion of this race. My heart rate was pretty high coming out of transition and it didnt settle down until we turned off of Friendship road. Probably due to the run up from the beach. The hill training paid off as I seemed to pass lots of folks going up the hills. From mile 6 to 8, which was the long straight on the outermost part of the course, I tried to conserve as much as possible while maintaining 21+mph. Coming back into the park, we caught up with some vehicle traffic. Kind of strange to pass a car on the right side on the shoulder.

Was this a screwed up version of the Olympic trials or something.......LOTS of folks drafting. Kind of hard with such a short course and the number of people racing. Still, I was starting to get torqued near mile 10 when a train of guys flew by me wheel to wheel. I caught up with several of these guys on the hills coming back into the park.

Pretty smooth here.

Not much...anything less than 1min is OK by me.

This one hurt pretty bad coming off the bike. It took me about 1 mile before I settled into my groove. I didnt have my Garmin, but I bet I ran a 8:30 or so for the first mile. Started to cramp up but ran through the pain and recovered my heartrate. Several folks passed me during this first mile and they were in my agegroup (darn!). Really got back in my rhythem and was able to pick up the pace for the last 2 miles. Something really neat happened during this run. I caught up with a guy who was running about the same pace. We actually agreed to push each other and catch up with the guy about 50 yds in front of us. Then we set our sights on the next guy and so on. It was really neat to have his support....I am sure we would not caught up with so many just runing alone. We pushed each other through the to the finish. I believe his name was Jeff Halloway #35 in the 20-24 age group.

More bricks?

Walked around a bit to try and recover. Shook hands with Jeff about the run, really cool experience. His wife was there with their dog and said hi. Picked up my shirt and cheered for the finishing athletes. Stretched quite a bit and then grabbed a diet coke.


Need to swim more and do more bricks from bike to run. Interesting to note that my total training distances for this year is about half of what it was compared to last year. I really wanted to beat my time from last year (1:12:16) and probably would have been close if it were not for the "shirt tangle" incident in T1. I would have needed 1:12:05 to place 9th in my agegroup. All in all I am pleased.


Had a great time again this year. This race continues to grow....I am not sure if the course can handle any more competitors. Volunteers were great, weather was perfect and times were fast. Will do it again next year!