Pinehurst Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Standing on the shore looking out at the swim course I couldn't see the buoys. The fog was so think they were all hidden. So I wade into the water and await the start knowing the general direction of the buoys b/c that's the direction all the other waves swam. So, I take off and hope for the best. I do finally see the first navigation buoy so I pass it and keep swimming hard. I keep trying to sight on the turn buoy but I can't see it. I even resort to breastroke but I can not see a triangular buoy anywhere. Plus there are swimmers all over the place. Some to my right, some to my left. So I just keep plugging along, still looking for the buoy. All of the sudden I hear someone screaming 'Over here, over here' and I look behind me, to my right and I make out a person on a surfboard directing swimmers to the buoy. Which, to add insult to injury, is deflated. So I start to swim on and ignore her but I can't. I knew I wouldn't feel good about my race if I knowingly cut the course. So...I turn around and swim all the way back and around the buoy. Now the faster swimmers have gotten away from me and I've got to fight my way back through the pack. I really didn't let it bother me though and I worked really hard on the way back in to make up some time. I'm pretty sure it cost me 2 or more minutes though. But don't worry...no good deed goes unpunished.

Ignore the girl on the surf board. ;)

Not a good transition. I'm always light-headed after an Oly distance swim and this was no exception. I was stumbling around and had to hold onto the rack while I put my shoes on. Once I'm moving again, I'm fine.

Maybe I should use a bucket to sit on for longer races so I'm not stumbling around.

This was a good ride for me. The first 10 miles are the toughest and I really pushed through here. The course was crowded at times and I got caught in a couple of small packs along the way. I really tried to either make the pass or ease back out of drafting position. Unfortunately, the USAT official came by right as I was waiting for the guy in front of me to make a pass. He wasn't able to make the pass quick enough and I ended up stuck behind. I was debating whether to pass them both (3 wide) or ease off. I decided to make it 3 wide but it was too late. They pulled up beside me and wrote down my number. I wonder if the other guy got a blocking penalty?

After that I really started to pay attention to my power. This was my first race using the PowerTap and I was interested to see how it worked. It was awesome. I stayed right where I wanted to be, had a great bike split and still had legs left for the run. I'm very excited to have the PT for B2B.


Not get a penalty.

First race where I racked my bike by the seat (because of AeroBottle) so that threw me off a little but other than that, I was in and out.

Nothing.

Legs felt pretty tight coming out of transition but I just concentrated on quick cadence and sang my little "Just put one foot in front of the other" song and by mile 3 they felt fine. Another girl and I came out of transition together and paced each other all the way through mile 5. At mile 6 she started to fall behind, I tried to get her to come with me but she couldn't. I felt REALLY strong that last mile and I took off. It might have been my fastest mile.

I had a lot left when I finished. I've got to learn to push harder on the run and not be afraid to blow up. But really, this was a good run for me.

Walked around, found Jeff and Jonathan, got some water and stretched. As I was leaving I ran into Carol (keyone), Dick (spot) and Bill (fgump). It was awesome!


Fog


Even with all my screw-ups this was still a great race. It was more of a hard training day for me and I really enjoyed it. I think since it was just a training race, I didn't let things get me down.. and I'm glad. Even with the 2 minute penalty, I still beat my push goal time of 1:40 (1:37:45 before penalty). :)

This is one of my favorite race venues and I will be back.