Devil's Challenge Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

The water was cool, but didn't feel cold. I seeded myself at the front. I went out a little too fast the first 100 yards, and slowed down into a more normal pace a bit after rounding the bouy. Sighting was good and I stayed pretty well on-course (unlike last year when I found myself heading towards the South shore). I didn't realize how high my HR was until I stood up and was sucking wind while running into transition.

Not much

Wetsuit got stuck on my ankles and I had to sit down to pull it off, wasting a few seconds. I took some deep breaths while putting on my socks, bike shoes, glasses, and helmet to relax some and bring down my HR.

Guess I need to practice removing the wetsuit a little more and/or cut a few inches off the bottom of the wetsuit. Even with a good coating of Body Glide, it was still sticking.

Started in an easy gear and high cadence to get ready for the first big hill on DL , or at least it felt like a high cadence, since my cadence sensor wasn't working. The sensor must have gotten bumped out of place transporting it to the race and I didn't check it beforehand. Luckily, I didn't really miss it much, since I've gotten much better at feeling what my cadence is.

Felt great on the bike (or at least as good as I could feel on those hills) and managed to stay in my saddle the whole time, as opposed to last year where I had to stand near the top of several hills. I was much better prepared this year.

I definitely appreciated the spectators around mile 9 or 10 that were out cheering and had the theme song from Rocky blaring from their car stereo. It was a nice little pick-me-up. Also, the long downhill around mile 10 or 11 was a blast, hitting 40+ mph.

Double-check my bike computer beforehand to make sure everything's working right. Keep training on the hills to improve my time for next year.

PR'ed T2. It probably helped that my rack was pretty close to the bike walk-in. Don't know if I'll ever get this under a minute, since my knee braces take 10-15 secs to get on.

Could definitely feel it that I’d pushed hard on the bike, as my legs felt more leaden than usual for the first mile. Poured some water on my head at the half-way point to cool down. Near the end of the bike, I’d heard some spectators cheering on someone behind me named Paul, and I heard them again several places on the run, so I told myself I had to keep going as fast as I could to try to beat Paul, whoever he was. Heard them again at the last turn towards the finish, so I sprinted as best I could to the end. Paul turned out to be from my age group and finished right behind me, so we congratulated each other on a good race. It's funny what you can find to motivate yourself during a race.

More tempo runs and bricks. I didn't do as much run training this year as I would have liked and minimal speed work due to other commitments and some minor injuries.

Got some water, stretched, and then cheered on other racers while waiting for my wife to finish.


Great end of season race. Challenging but fun, with nice scenery and very friendly participants.