Sylvania Triathlon - Olympic Distance - TriathlonOlympic

The cannon sounded and off we went. Didn’t feel too crowded at first and after a while I noticed a girl swimming right beside me at the same speed. I decided to hang onto her feet so I could go the same pace with less effort. This worked for about the first 10 min (awesome! Thanks you girl in front of me for being my speed and sighting well!) until someone else moved in to get on her feet too. In the shuffle, I lost my pacer’s feet and I may or may not have accidentally grabbed the rear end of another female athlete. Oops!

Made the first turn and was looking directly into the core of the sun…couldn’t see anything. I just followed the bright pink swim caps and hoped that they were going the right direction.

After the second turn, my eyes got a break and we were heading back to shore. After a couple minutes, I noticed that I was swimming through a bunch of debris…like someone had stirred up a bunch of gunk from the bottom of the lake. I look forward and see this guy with a weird position in the water…like he’s stuck to the surface. Just then my hand hit the bottom of the lake and I realized that we had bottomed out. The guy in front of me was pulling his way along the bottom of the lake. I did a couple of non-graceful dolphin dives to scoot back in on the course.

Around this time it got a little more crowded in the water…I caught up to the slow guys in wave 6 and the fast guys from wave 8 had caught up. I finally found another pink cap to draft off and rode it all the way in. I exited the water right at 29 min (an OWS PR for me even though it’s not very fast), but swim time includes running up and across the beach and across the road to transition.

Not grab another girl's rear end. Honestly though, this was not awful for me.

Put on socks (still can’t manage to go without), sunglasses and helmet and I was off. No issues getting into my shoes on the bike. Pretty fast T-1.

Nothing really...maybe someday I'd like to train my feet to go sans socks.

Headed west on Sylvania Ave. and could feel a little bit of the wind. From yesterday’s ride, we knew it would be bad heading out, but that we’d get a tailwind all the way in. After about a mile we turned onto Centennial and here is where I made a stupid mistake. When we biked the course the day before, we rode it counter-clockwise…the map online didn’t have arrows. I’m not sure why we didn’t ask if that was correct, but it just felt right. It looked like the sprint athletes turned left after a mile then we turn left after 2 onto Metamora. Not so much. When I got to the first intersection, there was a cop in the center a volunteer and some spectators and I noticed a woman ahead of me in the Olympic division turn left. I thought, “man, she’s going the wrong way…” and kept going straight. It takes me about 30 seconds to realize that there’s NOBODY ahead of me and that I had f’d up. I turn around and head back and yell out, “do all athletes turn here?” and one of the spectators answered yes. Now, I realize it was *completely* my mistake to just assume that the way we rode the bike course the day before was correct, but you’d think somebody would try to get my attention! Or even be calling out that we had a left turn. Oh well…I lost about a minute and only really have myself to blame.

So west on Brint for 4-ish miles. I’m holding about a 17mph pace into the wind, which isn’t too bad for me. It was a little more protected here than some of the rest of the course, so I knew it would get worse. The WNW wind was supposed to pick up throughout the day too. Did I mention I am a horrible cyclist when it comes to all things force-related? Hills and wind are my enemies.

We made a left on a diagonal road and the pavement was a little rough. The joints in the road were bad and were jarring my girl bits to pieces! But at least it wasn’t a headwind here…I pick it up to 18.5 mph. Then a right onto Sylvania Ave. again…here’s where the wind took it’s toll on me. I didn’t want to blow up, so I tried to keep my HR down, but then I was going from 17mph to 16 and a couple times down to 15. Ugh. Wind just makes me cranky…it feels like you’re working so hard and not getting results. I just had to play a game in my head to try to guess how many minutes it would take me to get to the next intersection. Fun.

Finally, I see the right turn onto Co. Rd. 2 ahead and I think it will all be over. I make the turn and can still feel the wind beating me up...the north part of the WNW wind was now getting me. I held about 16.8 on this part, but the pavement was also rough on this road. The middle section was a little smoother, but I didn’t want to get penalized for not riding on the right, so I kept chugging along. After 2 miles, I see the right turn onto Metamora and *finally* get the tail wind. My attitude got a little better and I was able to go 20-22mph on this section. Kept up a decent pace for this long section and for the 3 miles from Centennial into transition, but with the wind and directional mishap, I missed my goal of 1:20 for the bike.



Not go the wrong way on the bike course! I ended up going an extra .3 miles and losing about a minute. Also, I need to get a lot tougher on the bike...I'm a creampuff when wind and hills are a factor.

Got my feet outta my shoes once I passed the Senior Center, but still can’t do a flying dismount. I am not graceful at all here, but it works. Run my bike to my rack, slip on my shoes, grab my race belt, hat, and a gel and I’m out. Not a bad transition.

Someday be able to do a flying dismount. I'm kind of a spaz at lower speeds though and am afraid I would just tip right over.

Legs didn’t feel so good right away…they were pretty fried from going into the wind on the bike and they just felt heavy. I tried to stay with a girl that passed me at the end of the bike, then I passed in T-2, then she passed me right away on the run. At the first mile, I was at an 8:35 pace…really good for me! I was kind of scared that it was too fast, but I was feeling better now. I took in the gel and some water at the first aid station and settled in again. I passed the girl ahead of me and we gave each other some encouragement.

This run was nice. Very flat and through some shady subdivisions. Of course the cool weather helped too! My place slowed a little after mile 2, but I knew I could pick it up again. At the 3rd aid station, there was a weird sulfur-y smell as we turned the corner that was kind of gross. I got some water and tasted the sulfur-yness in the water! Yikes! I don’t know what that was about…

I was planning on getting some Heed at the mile 4 aid station as I felt like I could use a little more calories and if it didn’t work for me, I could still get through the last 2 miles. I tossed the cup back into my mouth…GROSS! I hate the taste of Heed!

Picked up the pace for the last 2 miles and started trying to pick off runners. Had some energy in the tank for a sprint finish and ended up with a running PR for even a stand alone 10K! Guess I could’ve picked it up a little more on the bike! Overall PR for me for an Oly., but not that big of a deal since my last one included changing a flat mid-race. Eric had a big PR for this distance too!

Not drink Heed when I haven't tried it before...blecchh...

Tried not to puke from my sprint finish and then got our towels to go down to the lake. They had the beach closed, so we had to settle for the crazy cold beach showers. We later found out that they had real showers and massages inside the building at the sports complex…bummer. Got some post-race snacks…skipped out on the beer, then got our gear and headed back to the vehicle to drop it off. Made our way back to the lake for the yummy lunch. Skipped out on the rest of the awards ceremony to make the trek home.


Stupid mistake not following the bike course, creampuff-ness on biking into the wind.


Elite Endeavors did an awesome job! Wish I had known about the "good" showers and massages.