Finger Lakes Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

Ow. Literally.

I was going to try to draft off of Dud at the beginning which lasted for about 2 body lengths at which point he turned his propeller on.

I have this problem with my left ring finger where I get excruciating pain under the nail at different times. I had surgery for it at the beginning of the year, which helped a bit, but it's still a problem. Quick decreases in temperature can set it off bad. At it's worst it feels like the tip of my finger is being sliced off. That's how it felt once I got into the water today. It was screaming until just before the first buoy. That completely messed up the first part of this swim. I don't really remember much of the out portion, just the pain and trying to stay somewhat on course.


Around the first buoy, the pain subsided and I could concentrate on swimming. Found some feet and hung on around the second buoy and another 100 yards or so at which point his navigation got screwy, so I found someone else and drafted off of them most of the way into shore. I swam until my elbows hit sand. Lots of people were walking around me, but I'd rather swim than walk in water.

Find a new hand surgeon.

Otherwise, I just need to swim more consistently. The Y I go to is starting a Masters program soon. That could be just the ticket.

Not too bad. Wetsuit came off ok. Took a little longer to get the shoes on than I would have liked. I really could stand to do these faster. Don't know if I'm slow in the run out of the water or the actual transition. Maybe both.

OA: 76
AG: 10

I had one mantra on this ride: "Your job here is to pass people." I really wanted to catch Dud near the end of the run and between his swim, his recently hard earned strength on the bike and his improved run I was worried about this. So I just went hard.

Not crazy hard, but harder than I normally would. This was good. Went totally on PE, didn't look at HR or speed once. Just rode and pushed. Pushing the bike is a mental block of mine. Today I didn't care and was willing to find out what it felt like. I was passed by one guy at the beginning of the ride, but other than that I was yelling "On your left" pretty much the whole ride. I also tried to yell something encouraging to everyone I passed. I figured I might blow up so if they passed me later I wanted to bank some goodwill. :)



Nothing. This was a good bike for me.

Could have been faster. Had a racking problem because my neighbor threw his wetsuit in my race space which prevented my tire from getting in the slot. Had to move the wetsuit.

First time running without socks in a race. I'm a convert. Some Aquaphor in the shoes and ZIP! right in there.

OA: 171
AG: 4

Not much. I can always move a bit faster.

Wow. Where did this run come from? I've hardly trained for weeks and weeks. Out of T2, I looked down at the 305 and saw a pace of 6:35 and thought "Too hard! You'll blow up!". But I felt great. So I went with it.
Saw mtimofeeff who yelled something about "he's way ahead". I immediately thought of Dud and figured "oh no!" so I pushed on. Saw Dud about a minute later. He looked ok, said something encouraging and I felt good so I decided to keep the pace up. Not too long after this, I started thinking about actually having a sub 7 minute pace for a Sprint run, a goal I've had for a while now. I didn't do it here, but I still ran way better than I planned so I'm not complaining. I'm convinced it'll happen next year. I passed a couple of people on this run that I just never pass. Ever.

It could have happened here, but every time my focus would degrade, I'd slow down. That's a big thing to work on.

Tried to do a gel but I ended up aspirating the freaking thing with about 6 oz of water. Ugh.

Saw lots of folks on the run course, one of my favorite things about this race. All the switchbacks give you a chance to see so many people.

Not try to breathe a gel.
Focus better.

Otherwise this was a very good run.

Socialized a bit, waited for Julie to come in and ran the last 50 yards or so along the chute with her. Hung out for a little while but a cold drizzle started and it was time to get out of there.


Some extra weight, for sure.


A good race as usual. They were laser focused on getting the waves started on time this year and it worked. Very impressive. The course improvements over the years are working well. Very good management and security in transition.

I don't understand why they were yelling at people to get bags out of the transition area and literally threatening over a megaphone that if you have a bag in transition it might not be there when you finish the race.
What are you supposed to do with your gear bag? Bring it back to your car? The parking isn't close. That just created stress and confusion that no one needed literally minutes before transition closes. Disallowing 5 gallon buckets makes sense, those can roll and be a hazard. But gear bags?

The food was so-so, which was surpring. It's usually much better. I have one other way it could be improved: faster results online. That's really a Score-This thing. They're a top notch race production company but they really are slow about getting race results up, particularly compared to other race production companies. That's not going to change until their customers, the RDs, start pressuring them to get results up at least by the evening of the race.

The Finger Lakes Triathlon is growing and for good reason: it's a great race. Every year they look for ways to improve it and they do. The RD is creative and committed. Well run, lots of fun and it's a fundraiser for a great cause.