Columbia Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Placed myself near the shore as I know this course hooks back to the right. A bunch of people went out way to hard and I sat behind 3 or 4 guys for the first 200 but they quickly faded and I had the water to myself. I was hoping and expecting to find someone to draft off of but no one was there so I just swam my own race. May have been my best swim to date as I was on cruise control, never pushing it and seemed to have open water the whole race. I could tell I was moving well, came out of the swim and heard I was the first in the Silver Wave (M30-34, M20-24) to exit.

Nothing - went out smooth and felt easy.

T1 estimate as timing system was messed up.

Disaster - Got to my bike and could not get it off the rack as all the bikes were pushed together. Tried one side - did not work, tried the other side - stuck. Had to lift the entire rack up to slide my bike out. This is really my only complaint about Columbia - they put 7 transition places where only 5 should be and the racks they use are low.

Not sure what to do here - racks not wide enough to rack by aerobars and racking by your seat makes it hard to get your bike out.

Came out of T1 and a guy in my age group was ahead of me due to my slow T1.

He did a flying mount (looked pretty cool) and I clipped in and then tried to catch him. Passed him early, he passed me back and we went back and forth like this for a bunch of the race. Even though he probably outweighed me by 30-40lbs (dude looked like a pro body builder) I would catch him on the downhills and he would drop me on the uphills, even when I was out of the saddle and he was spinning.

My aerobic base is still ahead of my cycling strength as I was fading a bit power wise at the end even though aerobically I was fine (HR dropped from 180 early to 160s).

Even though this course is always up and down, I love it and this was the first time that my swim and bike placings were close at a big race. Besides the guy in my AG (he beat me by a few seconds) that I was racing, no one passed me.

Nothing - I hammered this as hard as I could and was hurting by the end.

Nothing to report here - had a good spot and this went smooth.

Nothing.

Started off right behind the guy I was racing on the bike and made sure to surge hard to drop him at the half mile mark. Cadence was good and everything felt fine until around 5 (right before the gravel uphill) when my right hamstring seized hard. I tried to keep running but it cramped hard again. Had to stop and stretch for little bit and was worried about being caught as I know running is my weakness. Struggled up the hill and my hamstring started loosening up which allowed me to run hard again.

Asked a volunteer how much farther the finish line was and he said 1/2 mile. Suddenly my hamstring felt 100% better. :)

Was not passed on the run.

Was really surprised to finish and think I won my AG - I thought I had an outside shot of top 5 going in.

I need to train hills - my training runs are almost all flat and I suffered for it on this run.

Limped around - talked with some people that came out to cheer our BT crew on - thanks 3558, Luna, team FeXY, etc!

Watched Ally, Shelly, Ernie and the other BTers finish up - everyone did awesome and it was so cool to see our local training group come into a big race and do this well.


Best I could do with what I had.


One of my favorite races - tough hilly course, great pro (Chrissie Wellington, Bozzone, Lovatos, Wasners, Shapiro, etc) and amateur turnout and fantastic support.