J-Hawk Late Bird Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

So I'm in the lane with two other people. I am to go first and then second person starts 5 seconds later and then third person another 5 seconds later. My plan was to be smooth and steady for the first 6 lengths. Hammer the next 10 and then come in smooth the last four. Well within the first 3 lengths I think the guy behind me cought me so I had to let him pass. Grrrrr

Once he past though I tried to use it as an opportunity to draft which worked pretty well. I really stayed on his feet the rest of the time. A couple times as he tired I was feeling pretty decent and could have passed him but I kept thinking that if I hammered to pass him what would it cost me compared to what would I gain. A couple of times I was pretty tempted. I even touched his feet a few times which I think he's supposed to hold up then at the wall but didn't. Anyway, came in feeling pretty good though and I think my wife said I was third out of the pool in our wave of pretty decent swimmers.

Again, I probably could have passed that guy again but I might have gained more by staying behind and drafting. I'm very happy with my time since it includes a run out the door so maybe another 5 seconds from the pool to the T1 start.

I debated about flip turns. I know it would save time but I kept thinking about breathing and keeping good oxygen flow.

I took 28 seconds off last year and I thought I had a decent swim last year.

They don't keep T1/T2 splits in this race so your transition time gets added into your bike and also your run with T2. I was going to keep it tracked on my watch but I think once I forgot to hit the lap button.

Good transition though since I put my shirt on already as I ran into transition. Bike shoes on pretty well. Had a problem with helmet but overall, OK.

When I've done this race before I held back on the bike and really tried to hit the run pretty hard. My strategy today based on how the season has gone was to go out really pretty hard on the bike and see if I could just hold on for the run.

I was biking hard enough to spend a decent amount of energy but just not quite enough to blow up. Starting out of transition there are two pretty decent hills that I tried to not get too bent out of shape on. Once done with those I really tried to kick in. Bike computer gave me problems so I didn't always know how fast I was going.

Night before the race I woke up at 3am and the winds were really pretty strong so I thought, "here we go again!" Last year we really had some strong winds to deal with. This year though the winds died down and it really wasn't bad at all. I figured the wind we did have I was going in to for the first third of the race but after that not too much of a factor. I was passing some people (from wave ahead) and only got passed once late in the bike. I think then there were two people in my wave who started the bike ahead of me. The guy from my swim lane I saw before the turnaround about 2/3 in but didn't look like I was going to have a chance to catch him.

Really just tried to keep going hard with a high cadence (often times over 90 and sometimes even over 100). I haven't done a ton of biking the last 1-2 months so overall I was happy with the way that my legs were holding up. Somewhat hammered the last two hills coming in and finished strong.

I took 5:20 off last year's time. Granted last year was pretty windy but still I feel good about the improvement. Usually my swim gets me ahead of some people and I give back some on the bike and then quite a bit on the run. This race though my bike ranking for men overall isn't that far off from my swim ranking so I feel good about that!

Well, coming off the bike I certainly could tell that the legs were resistant. I knew if I just kept them moving nicely with small steps that they would kick in. I would say that after the two sifnficant hills and after the first mile then I felt decent. It's a fun run as much of the first two miles is wooded. I got passed by I think 2-3 guys early in the run by guys I will never stay with in a run from my wave. After that I think I got passed once more although I did pick off I think 2 or 3 people from previous waves. The run moved along fairly well and I'm starting to think about my overall time. I was happy to come out of T2 about 50 minutes in the race so I felt good about finishing somewhere in the lower 1:20s. A few times I did really want to walk. Not so much that my legs were trashed although they were tired but my breathing was pretty labored.

About 1.75 miles in after being pretty isolated out there I did see one woman ahead in the distance. I thought well at least I have something to shoot for. I wasn't making up much time on her but at least it was something to pace myself some. After the two mile mark she started to walk which allowed me to catch her but I almost wanted to still try to catch her while she was running. As I passed though then she started running again so that kept me motivated to try to hold her off. I could tell she was somewhat close as I was getting close to make the final turn so that kept me moving.

The finish is a kind of long open stretch where you see the finish line but feel like you still have a long way to go. I kicked it in somewhat to look strong to the family as I came in.

I kept a decent pace for me all things considered. I figure that when you subtract out my T2 I probably averaged 9.5 minute miles on a bit of a hilly course after working pretty hard on the bike. I took almost 2 minutes off of last years time so I'm good with this.

Took me a bit to catch my breath. I decided not to wear HRM today but I have to think I was well into the 190s during the run. Meet up with the fam, walk some, eat some and check posted times.


My training volume since my HIM in July wasn't where I would like it to be so I would think that didn't help but I feel great about this race and great about the whole season. I was shooting to try to place in this race and was happy to take second. I'm sorry but even though it's the Clyde category it's somewhat of a thrill for me to have my name called to go up and get a medal for something I did athletically.

Tri season is now over. After 6 races this year over about 5 months it's a little bitter sweet. By far the best tri season I have done which feels very good. Now I know that it's going to be quite a bit more challenging to beat those times although I do feel like after dropping another 30+ lbs and training more that I can do it. I do feel like I have a sub 5:30 HIM at SOR in me and maybe even a sub 2:35 OLY but it's going to take work. I probably won't race quite as long next year but I will get a full IM in at some point too.

Great to see mutri and sgoehner really smoke the field (both in overall top 5)! Great too to see travisvb24 there although a bummer he didn't get to race. His wife Sandy looks like she had a very nice race and that rocks!


They have this race fairly well down. I actually think these volunteers put as much time into this race as others do for and OLY or even and HIM since the waves are so spread out so props to them on that. Fun race, fun day. My kids did the children's race held after the adults and I thought they did a great job putting that on!