Florida Great Escape Triathlon - TriathlonOther

There was a long walk in the lake before you could begin swimming. Within the first 400 meters or so, my shoulders, especially my right one, were tired. I knew I would make it fine, but I just didn't feel very fast. Swimming is definitely my weakest leg and I need to really work on improving my technique. Stamina for a long swim isn't an issue, but my efficiency is for sure. I sited well for the most part, especially the first leg of the lap where I swam alongside the line of buoys and rounded right on the buoy for both the turns.

Swim more! I may want to look into getting my stroke analyzed. If I want to be more competitive in my age group, I'm going to really have to improve my swim.

It was a tough run up the sand shore to the boardwalk and to transition. I had to sit down to pull my wet suit of my ankles. I also had to put the Garmin wristband on for T2 later. Otherwise it was a decent transition. Looking at other guys in my AG transition times, they were only about 20 seconds faster. For the length of the transition run I don't think that's too terrible for me.

Flying mount on my bike and strap into my shoes on the bike rather than before hand.

It was a two lap course. I think I went out too hard the first lap. Coming in from the first lap I had an average over 22mph. I also didn't take a Gu on the bike like I thought I would. The worst part was the knee pain I had that started towards the end of the first lap. It was the worst it has ever been. I think that also kept me from pushing harder on the bike than I wanted to.

I think next time I will take a Gu right at the beginning of the bike. I think I found that the cause of my knee pain is in my cleats. My right cleat is completely worn thin and I think it's allowing my foot and knee to turn while riding. So hopefully that will completely go away after I get new cleats this week. Other than that I just need to continue to get stronger.

I'm still running with socks. And as I was clipping my Garmin from the bike onto my wristband, I thought it was clipped in when it wasn't. Luckily it bounced on the timing mat as I exited transition and it bounced right back up to me where I caught it and finally clipped it in.

Not too much. Just about everybody else's T2 was from 40-60 seconds.

This was a tough run for me. I was hoping to run between a 33 and 34. The sand and dirt road made it pretty difficult for me. However, I finished really strong passing two guys in my age group that passed me at the start of the run. I was completely focused the last mile running it at 6:02. This was the first race where I actually passed some people on the run. Previously I was always getting passed by people. Nice change of events.

Continue to run more and maybe push myself just a little more at the beginning of the run.

Walked around, drank water and Gatorade and ate a hot dog.


Lack of swimming technique, knee pain on the bike, and having trouble running on the dirt road. Also being ridiculously busy with school and Xtreme the past two weeks cut into my training.


It was a lot of fun. I loved getting to come down to Florida to enjoy some warm weather and race in February. I don't know if I'll do this race again next year, but it definitely was enjoyable.