Luray Triathlon - International - TriathlonOlympic

Felt good going out but the sun got in my eyes right off the bat and I had a tough time sighting. Swim felt long, or maybe I just wasn't used to not wearing a wetsuit in open water.

Went out in the first 200m a little too hard. Need to ease into the swim and not get caught up in the guys sprinting for the first buoy.

Had to run in from the beach up a set of probably 50 stairs that were really low. Found my rack easily, grabbed my gear and I was off.

I need tri shoes. I waste way too much time messing with socks and my bike shoes when I should just be worrying about getting ON to the bike.

Took a minute or two to shake the legs out, but felt pretty good going out. Long, gradual climbs wore my legs down. I haven't done much bike training in the last 6 weeks and I really started to feel it later on the course. I bought my first tri bike 3 weeks ago, and against my better judgment I decided to use it instead of my road bike. In retrospect, I probably should've used my roadie and I think I went too hard on the bike and didn't leave much left for the run. Took down two shots of hammer gel and a bottle of sports drink.

Pace better, I got pretty aggressive on the hills and wore my legs out.

Everyone talks about that it's not IF you ever get in a bike crash, its WHEN. Well, I decided that this would be my moment. I was coming in, 50 feet from the dismount line, I swing my right leg over riding on the left crank with my hands on the brakes, and just as I approach the dismount line I hear a huge WOOSH a few feet behind me. Someone came in very quickly right on my heels, and it scared the living sh!t out of me. I look over my left shoulder, twist the handle bars and send myself over on top of my bike as it buckles over. Very graceful. No injuries, bike is fine, just a shot to the ego. Well done me.

Learn to dismount properly, or just worry about myself when coming up to the dismount line.

Surprisingly, my legs felt pretty good coming out of transition. I get to the 1m mark at 7:30 and decide I'm going out too fast. I slow it down to something a little more comfortable because I know that there are bigger hills coming up. This is when my legs decided that they didn't want to work any more. Tried to keep an 8 min/mile pace, then an 8:30/mile pace, then a 9:00/mile pace, and finished up my final mile at almost a 10 min/mile. As I made the turn at 3.1, I heard Mary from Rehab2Racing yell "c'mon Tim, where are those afterburners!!" Apparently I left them at home =)

Sun was beating down, legs were fried and coming up that last hill was like a death march. With all of the run training I've been doing in the last few months I thought I'd be ok, but all the running in the world doesn't change the fact that I cooked my legs on the bike.

Pace my bike better to leave some for the run.

Pace better on the bike! I was 7th in my AG after the bike and fell to 13 during the run.


I have to give props to Team FeXY and Team Z, getting up that last hill on the bike was brutal and those horns were hilarious. Also, the support from the aid stations on the run was great (thanks BT'rs). David G. put on a well organized race, hopefully next year I can do it a little better trained on the bike.