Tribal Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

There are some pieces of good news and a few pieces of bad news with regard to this swim. First bad: it was S-L-O-W. It is another example of not demonstrating the work I have done in the pool once I hit open water. Second bad: I would swim effectively for short bursts, and then stop and recover before starting again. This continued through most of the swim. In the pool, I can do long distances without breaks. The good: I finally have pinpointed EXACTLY what my open water fear is: I am afraid of exertion and getting out of breath in open water. Every time I would get rolling and into a good rhythm, I would feel myself starting to get winded, fear would rise, and I would have to stop. This pattern repeated throughout the swim. I think that in the pool, I am able to let myself go faster because I have the security of a wall or bottom if needed. The bad news here is that I am not yet sure how to fix the issue, but at least it is identified. I think that in future open water training sessions, I am going to concentrate on going harder to prove to myself that nothing bad will happen. This is all in my head - I just need to get past it.

Even though this was not an improvement, time wise, I feel like I am a step closer to being effective in open water. I now know exactly what is going on in my head when I have trouble - I just need to fix it. In between the forced stops on this swim, I had a really good rhythm, and if the stopped time was taken out, I would be happy with the time.

Not worry about what will happen if I go fast and get winded - it is just water, and I am comfortable and safe. No need to let the fear rise.

Solid transition - nothing wasted, no messing around. I did come close to doing something REALLY stupid. My wallet, keys, and phone were in the bento box on my bike, and I noticed before I was about to start. I removed them and went to put them in my transition bag. After I started to unzip the bag and place my things in it, I realized that my neighbor had an identical bag, and I was about to place my things in the wrong one. Caught the mistake (thankfully), put them in the right bag, and hit the bike course.

Made the correct decision to sit down to remove the wetsit and put on my shoes, since I have balance issues exiting the water. Aside from the wallet/phone/key fiasco, it was a good transition.

The bike went very, very well. I was pushing from start to finish, and my knowledge of the course was beneficial. Since I had most of the field in front of me after the swim, I always had people in front of me to chase, but that also meant that some of the weaker cyclists presented some challenges in passing, since they were weaving on uphills and not staying to the right in some cases.

I was passed twice on the bike, but in both cases it was by someone who I had already passed. The first instance was a guy who I overtook on a downhill - he caught me on the next uphill and I lost him. The second was a woman who traded places with me about five times. We were going switching places back and forth and blowing the doors off of other people in the process. She commented at one point that I must be a weaker swimmer, too, since our ability on the bike was comparitively much stronger.

The way the bike was going, I didn't need to seek out opportunities to pass - they just happened - on flats, downhills, and uphills. I went through the course faster than I have in either training or the event the past two years. The inaugural race for the tri bike was successful.

After a wild 39 minutes, it was time to hang up the bike and start running. This was going to be my true test for the day.

Not a thing.

Smooth transition. I handed off my bike and found my bag pretty quickly. I sat down, changed shoes and from my helmet to my hat and took off - not rushed, but no wasted time - HR was in control.

Nothing - it was a good transition.

The trap that I always fall into on the run is taking my foot off the gas after the bike is over. I usually am back in the pack, so there aren't enough people around to push me, and I tend to lose focus. My goal for this race was to push the run, even though the trails and uphills are tough. I had caught up to and passed a bunch of people on the bike and I didn't want to give all of those positions up on the run. I thought to myself that if people catch me because they are better runners, fine - I am okay with that. But getting passed because I am being lazy wasn't acceptable. If they were going to get past me, I wanted to make them work for it.

The first 3/4 mile was spectacular. It was mostly downhill and I was navigating the trail much faster than I have before. At the bridge, I knew the uphills would start, and I wanted to speed through the portion of the course that would be easy, albeit rocky (I still needed to be conscious of tripping on a rock and falling). After the bridge, the uphills started and things got tougher. On a couple of the uphills, my HR started to get a little high and I backed off to get it down again - however, the breaks were brief and I got going again quickly. I had to chide myself with a few profanities as I told myself to get my (expletive adjective)(expletive noun) moving, but it worked. I got caught by a few people over the course of the run, but as I stated above, I wasn't making it easy for them.

Once I got onto the pavement, everyone had spaced out and it looked like my position was pretty well set - no one within striking distance and no one behind me. I pressed to the crest of the hill and started the downhill into the finish. I knew that I was moving faster than I ever have on this run, and felt strong going into the finish line. I crossed the line feeling good about the effort - the time doesn't indicate it due to the course difficulty, but it was my best run in a tri.

I might have been able to increase the cadence slightly on the uphill road near the finish, but I am probably splitting hairs.

Said hello to Josh, who had finished about 20 minutes earlier. Then I hung out with Jenna and Barkley until the bags were brought from T2.


Mental issues on the swim


This is a fantastic event, and always one of my favorite races of the year. It is well organized, well supported, fun, and in a beautiful and challenging venue.

Overall, I am really happy with the race. Despite the issues on the swim, I raced well from start to finish, which was what I wanted to accomplish. I had mmy best run ever in an event, and my mental effort level was by far my best. I felt focused from the beginning to the end, and I never let up. This is definitely one to build on.