Cranberry Country Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Swim was pretty uneventful, a bit crowded going into the first turn but after that it thinned out pretty quick. I was able to keep a comfortable pace and did great with my sighting and navigation, which I was glad for.

Given how little I swam this year, I'm pleased. Other than training more, I'm not sure what I would do differently.

T1 went well, although I did pull my suit down too soon after coming out of the water. It's a decent run to the transition area, and my suit was falling down past my waist so I had to hold it up as I ran. Got the suit off okay, got my glasses and helmet on, then ran with my bike to the mounting area. My shoes were already clipped into my pedals, so it was easy to run and get on the bike.

Wait a bit longer to pull my suit down to my waist.

Bike leg went pretty well, although a bit of showers mid-way through made me nervous as I thought the road might get slippery. Having ridden the course a number of times, I was very comfortable with it and didn't struggle at all. I probably could have pushed a bit harder, but I wanted to save some juice for the run.

At the beginning of the ride I had trouble getting one of my shoes tight, because in setting up my transition area I had opened it up too much once it was clipped in. Next time I won't open it up quite so far.

T2 went very well, no issues at all.

I started out feeling good on the run, but by mile 2 my complete lack of training caught up to me and I started running out of gas. I started doing telephone-pole intervals, running one and then walking one. One of my teammates caught up to me, and we ran/walked together for the next few miles. By mile 4 my feet were starting to hurt from blisters so I had to slow up a bit, and at mile 5 I had to stop for a nature break so I let her go on ahead of me. After the nature break I felt good and ran most of the last mile into the finish.

I've heard that some people actually train for these events, I might give that a shot! :-)

Also, the blisters were caused by running sockless. I've always done triathlons without socks, but my lack of running this season left my feet a bit on the tender side. So, I guess my options are to wear socks and/or run more!

Took my bloody sneakers off (that's not an expression, they actually were bloody) and walked around a bit to cool off. Grabbed some food, hung out with my teammates for a bit and then packed up my stuff. I was in the last wave and I was one of the slower folks on my team, so some folks started clearing out soon after I finished.


Lack of training, pure and simple.


Based on my complete lack of training this year, I'm pleased that I was only 9 minutes off last year's time and I beat my time from two years ago when I had trained all summer. But, it's still disappointing to finish so far back in the field so I really need to get my butt in gear and get back to training. I also need to focus during the off-season on my running, which is by far my weakest discipline.