Keuka Lake Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Felt fine at the start. No nerves. I was using my new swim mask rather than goggles. LOVE IT! Sighting was ridiculously easy.

Started in the middle right behind the torpedoes. Made it to the first buoy no prob, a little bit of crowding but nothing too bad. Around the buoy and someone went off course and cut right across me. I thought he'd figure this out when he swam over my arms, but no, he kept going. He then kicked my mask and it filled with water. I was able to flip on my back, empty it and get it back on in about 2 seconds.

Best sighting I've ever done, that's for sure. Combine the great conditions with the swim mask and the buoys were continuously in the last place I expected them to be: right in front of me.

Didn't feel great about this swim, but I didn't feel bad about it either. It was a decent effort.

The time includes the run up the stairs and to T1 so take one to one and a half minutes off that time.

Get into a groove sooner. The last 200 yards felt really good.

OA-106
AG-9
Getting out of the suit went fine.
Had a really hard time getting into my shoes. This cost me at least 20 seconds.

Mounting the bike and getting going was fine.

Get new tri shoes...

The official results have me at a 20.1mph pace. Odd.
This went better than I expected. Due to the marathon a few weeks ago my bike training has been really hit or miss. My bike fitness is just plain low. Yet, I passed a lot of people on this ride and was only passed by four. The first two who passed me was a ridiculously fast woman in the first couple miles and a guy who was obviously a very serious cyclist but not much of a swimmer.

After that, I got passed by two guys in separate incidents in the middle of the course, both of whom I was able to quickly reel back in.

Rules issue: PLEASE DON'T BLOCK! This means ride on the right side of the road. In the first few miles I came up on a guy riding in the middle of the road around 16 mph. He had no business being that far left. I yelled 'ON YOUR LEFT' a bunch of times at him, and what does he do as I'm actually about to overtake? He veers left. I'm in the bars and can't get to a brake so my choices are to either crash into him or tack left and go over the middle line. There was no oncoming traffic so I went over the line a few inches and cut over as soon as I could. When he saw me next to him, he veered back right.

So what do I then see? An official on a motorcycle passing me and writing down a number on her pad. Crap. I spent the rest of the race thinking "if this guy gets me DQ'd I'm going to be so pissed." I wasn't DQ'd. Didn't even get a penalty. There were two penalties written for blocking though, so hopefully this guy got one of them.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to comment on the truly excellent officiating at today's race. Absolutely top notch. ;)

Saw Dud near the turnaround as he was starting up the big hill. I knew I had him then. ;)

Saw lots of people on hybrids/mtn bikes etc. Yelled something encouraging to each one. They just make my day. There are some tough hills on this course and doing it on one of those bikes is studly times ten.

I almost bought it going at least 22mph when my front tire got caught in one of the gaps between the road and the shoulder. Not good. The road conditions were absolutely atrocious. None of the potholes on the course were marked. I'm surprised no one was hurt. There are potholes and failing pavement all over the place. The past few years the bad spots were marked with paint, but not this year. They should have been. For that reason alone, I'd rate this bike course as unsafe. If I was the insurance carrier, I would not be happy.



Nada.

Well, maybe catch Dud on the bike. Gotta do that in a Sprint one of these days.

OA-136
AG-8

GRRR!! I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE ACT AS IF THEY'RE THE ONLY ONES IN A TRANSITION AREA!

I get into T2, actually run down the correct row, find my spot and it's a freaking mess. The guy with a Specialized Transition at the very end of the row was in too much of a hurry to actually rack his bike. He just dropped it on top of other peoples transition mats/towels, scattering our stuff. Unbelievable. I saw one of my shoes under the bike, so I picked the bike up and "moved" it a few feet out of the way where it wasn't on anyone's stuff and wouldn't be a hazard. My other shoe had been pushed three feet in the other direction. In this confusion I forget my number belt (didn't realize this until I was in the finish chute).

Don't know what I could have done differently. The chaos was of someone else's making. I had to deal with it and move on. Time wasn't too bad considering.

Felt ok, not great, to start. I realized pretty quickly that I left my run out on the bike course.

I was just operating on passing the next person I saw in front of me until I saw Dud a couple hundred yards ahead. Then the goal was to catch and pass him. Caught him at almost exactly the 1 mile mark and then went "Crap! What now?" So I went back to passing the next person in front of me. In theory. In practice the actual strategy was "keep running, don't fall down and don't let the people in front of you get further away".

I wasn't going as fast as I wanted to and this run did hurt but I figured as long as I was there I may as well push it. I really wanted to go faster and my effort level could have gone up but it just wasn't in my legs. I had trashed them on the bike.

Still, I passed a fair number of people. My standing in my AG actually stayed exactly the same on the run, so I suppose that's enough to ask for.

Train on the bike more.

Watched Dud come in. Hit the buffet with Dud and Derek. It was good to see Derek, it's been a while. He looked great. It didn't feel like Keuka Lake without Bob though.

Got to meet some BTers which is always cool: cusetri, K.Stuttle


This is the triathlon season opener for upstate/western NY and it's at a great venue. Keuka College is beautiful, the lake is great and the food is the best you'll get at a tri. Being able to eat in the cafeteria is really nice.

Once the roads get fixed this will be a truly great race. If the roads keep deteriorating from their present condition without being fixed, I don't know that I'd do it again.