Grand Haven Y Festival of Races - Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Ugh...where to begin. This was the choppiest swim I have ever done. Way worse than the chop in the Gulf for IMFL or for Steelhead a couple years ago. I'm sure for seasoned big water swimmers it was not bad at all, but it was bad enough to not be able to see buoys in between waves and enough to start making me seasick.

I just concentrated on not panicking and making forward motion. This was tough because I was constantly getting pushed back and away from the buoys. I couldn't believe how long it took me to get to the sprint start area! I got it in my head then that today would be just a nice long training day...as long as I survived the swim.

I exited the water at about 39 minutes (which is pretty horrible for me...at least 10 min slower than I should have been), but the swim times include the run up to transition (this was probably my only annoyance about this race).

So once you exit the water, you have to run along a LONG beach (with really deep powdery sand that is beautiful, but tough to run through) to the pier. We saw so many people taking shoes down to the pier for the run to transition, that I decided to run in my Keen sandals. I don't know if it was that helpful. My HR was already so high from the crazy swim and beach run, that I definitely wasn't breaking any land speed records on the .7 miles to transition.

I guess get more experience swimming in big bodies of water? I certainly wasn't mentally prepared to deal with that part.

Well, since transition times didn't start until you entered the actual transition area, this time was pretty good for me. Suit got stuck a little, but not bad. I hadn't practiced starting with my shoes clipped in for a while and there's an immediate downhill followed by some turns, so I didn't want to chance it.

I probably should've just gone with the shoes in...it was a long run in cleats to the mount line.

I'm not sure if this course is easier on the out section with the way the inclines are, or if the wind had changed direction a little, but I was averaging 18.6 on the way out and my HR was pretty conservative. I lost a lot of time coming back in even though I was working pretty hard.

There are 2 pretty significant climbs that I had to take out of the saddle just past the state park, so you get to take them at the beginning and again at the end. It just always seemed like the downhills got cut short because there were 90 degree turns at the bottom of them!

Definitely not a good showing. I was not in a great mental place for this. When I passed the sprint turnaround, I was very jealous.

I think this was just a byproduct of a tough week combined with a crappy, hard swim and extra running. I tried to just go at a pace that was comfortable instead of really pushing it...I didn't have much juice in the legs at all.

You have to go up a short steep hill to get to transition, so I didn't take my shoes off before then. Then the dismount line was really early, so I just unclipped and ran. Still fairly speedy despite that.

Not sure, I guess if I knew where the dismount was ahead of time I could have planned that a little better.

Meh. I was pretty well done at this point. I just ran at an endurance pace and hung on. I was not a huge fan of this run course, but I think I was just ready to be finished racing.

A girl in my AG passed me at mile 4 and I made a half-hearted attempt to stay with her, but lost sight of her before the 6 mile mark.

Be mentally prepared to race.

Got our stuff packed up then biked back to the B&B to shower before lunch and the awards/raffle. Eric had had the same type of race as me...a very meh race in general.


Not enough big water swimming experience, 2 5Ks and lots of backpacking leading up to it. Looking back, we should've really just stuck with the sprint...I just didn't have enough energy in me to get through this race in good shape.


I have to say that this race had some tricky logistics, but it was probably the most well-executed race I've done outside from the IM. For your entry fee you get dinner the night before, a good tech tee, some good stuff in the goody bag, breakfast-y stuff in the morning (coffee and fruit)and a big, full lunch afterwards with bands playing. They had more volunteers at this course than Muncie had. It was crazy...it would be interesting to hear the volunteer/athlete ratio.

I am not in love with the point to point swim or long run to transition (though I don't know what they could do about that)...but they really need to have a timing mat at the water instead of only at the TA.

The bike course is great, but the run course wasn't as nice as it could be.

I love Grand Haven and think this is a really nice weekend getaway race.