Pokagon State Park Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Despite all practice, when confronted with swim stress, I always "run home to Momma"; abandoned the stroke I've been practicing all winter and went back to my usual, inefficient, breathe-every-stroke-to-the-right. Consequently, did not improve my time at all. By my watch, I came out of the water at 27:08 which is 8 seconds slower than last year's AG Nationals. I think the official time has the run to the top of the stairs added in. That was an extra treat.

Trust my "new" stroke more, increase intensity of swim training. I have been kind of coasting through the laps. Need to pump up the focus and volume.

Quite slow. Maybe cold water dulled my senses, but had a hard time getting helmet on. Still not comfortable starting with shoes already clipped into pedals on new bike so had to put shoes on and run with them. Was thanksful that I was so close to bike-out.

Still need practice with cossack drill to get used to putting shoes on while biking.

I usually don't ride outside when the weather is less than perfect, so I was a little tentative in the corners/turns. Seemed to me that the wind and driving rain were consistent throughout the whole course, but I'm sure that's just my imagination. Made up a lot of time from my gimpy swim, and only got passed once by a guy on a sweet Valdora. Stayed aero the entire way except into the corners. Resisted the urge to put hands on the horns going up the hills and just focused on spinning to the top. Felt great about use of gears. Need to tighten aerobars as they were slowly dropping after hitting rough patches in road. Otherwise, I still love the new bike. I did get a hands-on lesson about "yaw" with the gusty winds and how they affect HED Jet 90's. Sort of scary a couple of times.

Less time on trainer, more time outside. Even in bad weather. Overall pretty happy with this ride considering conditions.

I think this was the best T2 I've ever had. Slipped feet out of shoes with about 100yds to go, coasted to dismount line, jumped off bike in a single, fluid motion. Almost made it look like I knew what I was doing. The volunteer said "nice dismount". Felt good about that.

More practice, but happy with this.

By far the hardest run I have ever done. Had no idea that this course would be so hilly. Much harder than the AG Nationals course in Portland last year. On several occasions had to force myself to run and not walk up a steep grade hill. Got passed once, passed several people, including Mr. Valdora-bike; who looked kind of disoriented. I think he had actually taken a wrong turn on the run and was trying to figure out if he was on the right trail. This was the only beef I had with the whole race, there were several insances on the run course where you could easily take the wrong fork in the road. It was by sheer luck that I actually made it around the actual course instead of detouring unnecessarily.

More hill training. Several of the hills on this course were "Seattle-esque" in terms of grade.

2 scoops of recoverite, changed out of wet clothes, put on 2XU compression gear, warm hat. Went over to the picnic area and had a great pile of pancakes, fruit. Stood by the roaring fire and watched the other competitors finish the run. Talked to a couple of guys in my age group.


Not really sure on this. I raced healthy for the second race this year. I guess I have to find that balance between racing healthy and pumping up the intensity of my training. Some obvious areas of improvement: swim efficiency, shoes in pedals on bike. I think I can remove a couple of spacers from my aerobar stem. I felt a little too elevated in gusty wind.


Absolutely loved this race. Wish I had done better in it, but happy with overall outcome and effort level. Standing by the fire after the race watching the volunteers flipping pancakes and being so friendly made me realize why I race triathlons. It was just a great, warm feeling. This is a really, really challenging course from the cold water to the constant hills on the run. It is what a triathlon is supposed to be. I can easily see why this race was selected as the region's special qualifier for Tuscaloosa. It is fantastic. If they can work out a way to more clearly mark the run course, it will be perfect.