Soma Quarterman Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Bleh. I hadn't put my wetsuit on in two years. Thankfully, it still fit. Sort of. Felt pretty dang tight.

I started out well...swimming fairly straight. Then my stupid goggles started leaking. Like, a lot. This is the same pair I wore for the 10k swim without a single leak. WTF? I stopped a few times to try to fix them, but it never worked. So I really couldn't see.

So, they told us to turn left at the second orange buoy. The second orange buoy shows up....and....no one turns. Hunh? Oh...they meant the second LARGE orange buoy. Nice clear directions...obviously.

The goggles were really bad on the return trip. I was pretty ticked. I was happy to finally get out of the water.

Tighten up my goggles before the swim.

Okay, so I get out of the water, get my cap/goggles off...and.....a volunteer f'ing STOPS me and tells me I have to WAIT because the Best of America runners are coming by. WTF??? I'm racing TOO! I probably lost only 10 seconds...but still. NO RACER should EVER have to wait. Completely poor planning on their part. The run course should not have interfered with the swim out.

I finally got to my place and by then I had the wetsuit down around my waist. I quickly got it off and started putting on my bike shoes. My eyes were still a bit blurry from all the water. I got the helmet and glasses on, grabbed the bike and ran. I felt kinda "naked" because all my rides lately I've been carrying so much fuel/water I am used to being weighed down.

7th fastest in AG....

Nothing really...I guess I could go a little faster.

Cluster F*ck. That's really it.

This was supposed to be 27 miles...two "loops". One full loop and one "modified" loop. If you read the map, it made perfect sense. The reality was something entirely different.

Starting out, the course was very crowded and full of idiots. I'm talking people that are not in the middle of passing, but riding on the very left hand side of the lane. I was not the only person that noticed this! I had to yell at several people for blocking. I spent probably 5 miles getting through a bottleneck. It felt a little more open after that.

I was told to "redline" so I pushed really hard at first. Eventually I had to back off a little bit so I could sustain. But I still tried to push the whole time.

Right away this course is annoying because just when you get in a rhythm there would be an intersection and you would have to stop to make a turn. Not literally STOP...but stop pedaling and slow down so you could make the corner and then speed up again.

So I finally get to the Charlie Foxtrot intersection. The volunteers are saying "Quarter Iron Second loop left, Half right". Say what? What about Quarter FIRST loop? You would have to be a rockstar to be on your second loop by now! So I sat up and slowed down trying to figure out what was going on. Was I supposed to go left and start the second loop? Hunh? I was about to go left when I saw chalk writing on the ground telling the quarter first loop to go right along with the half guys.

So I turned left but I saw several people trying to figure out WTF was going on. And I predicted that a lot of people would be confused and might have even missed the turn.

So I finished the first loop and started on the second. Turns turns turns. People blocking. Blah Blah Blah. I came up on the Charlie Foxtrot intersection again and I SWEAR they told me to go RIGHT for the quarter and left for the half...which is entirely backwards. I knew better this time and made the left. The chalk on the ground saying quarter second loop go left helped me. :)

Other issues with the bike course. Whoever had coned it off, put the "keep right" signs for the cars IN the bike area. I saw at least three people have to jerk their bikes to avoid hitting them...because if you were riding to the right like you were supposed to, you would hit them if you were not careful. Dangerous. Then the aid station was handing out bottles from both sides of a narrow lane. So there was nowhere to go if you didn't want a bottle but wanted to avoid the chaos. And of course, I was behind a guy who couldn't keep his wheel stable to save his life. He didn't slow down enough to get his bottle and almost wobbled into me. Really, they should have done a LONGER aid station and just been handing out bottles on one side.

I guess the theme was that I was very very afraid of crashing...due to the course, due to the people, due to the signs...everything. I was SCARED.

At this point I was realizing that the course seemed long and began to wonder if I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. I expected to finish the 27 miles in about 1.5 hours. So I eventually switched to distance view on the bike computer and I'd gone over 30 miles already! Hunh????

Pulled into transition at 31.45 miles!

Nutrition was 500 calories of infinit that I drank in the first hour.

Push harder.

I'm slow. I ran in my bike shoes. I was one of the first people back on my rack so I had plenty of room but it isn't easy to just throw on.

I lost a lot of time putting on socks...but they are necessary. And I had to tie shoelaces because I've been too lazy to put those non tying ones on. Anyway, not bad....16th fastest in AG.

Move faster?

This was pretty good for me! I kept a fairly consistent pace. I walked through aid stations. I felt good the whole time. I probably could have gone a little faster, but I was kinda scared I would die off if I went much faster. I have been doing so much slow running that I have almost forgotten how to run hard.

I had water at every aid station and about 3 miles in I had three clif bloks. I never bonked...so...musta worked!

Push a little harder?

I walked to transition, packed up my stuff, and got my recovery drink. Then I ran into some friends from Colorado and we went to the food area to eat. Then we sat around in the shade waiting for the awards. I stretched a bit. Then we went and got our stuff out of transition, and went back to our cars.


Need more run training!


This race was fairly well organized...but had several problems. Having to WAIT after the swim irked me. The poorly placed signs on the bike sucked. The bike course had SO many turns. The whole Charlie Foxtrot with the quarter/half split...that was just awful. Good race, but these are all things that the RD's should have been able to predict and avoid.