The Nation's Triathlon : Official Thread (Page 3)

On the wetsuit...if you can get in a pool between now and then and try it once, you'll probably be fine.  The key is getting the wetsuit on right.  I really work to get in up as high as possible so that my arms don't feel constricted and there's no pressure on the shoulders.  Seems to take forever and I'm constantly tugging up right up until race time.  This has helped alot compared to my first race with one.

There will be folks w/o wetsuits.

Bike course is fast and pretty flat.  The 180 turns are ok.  At least they are not at the bottom of a hill.

At this point, I am curious if the swim will happen at all. I think the temp will drop to be wetsuit legal with all the rain over the weekend and rain expected this week but the weather seems to have chances of rain and storms every day this week and on race day. We shall see what happens. Megg, did you by any chance take a look at the current? was it moving pretty fast?

The water looked extremely still this morning. It has been hot and extremely humid with no wind at all. The weather report is showing storms tonight and tomorrow, sunny and hot Thursday and Friday, and about a 40% chance of storms Saturday and Sunday. Probably too early to say anything significant at this point.

ugg, hate heat and humidity in the city. Why cant the forecast go back to the way it was last week when it said it would be 82 with 0% chance of rain on race day lol. I guess we will have to keep an eye on the weather and hope for the best.

I guess from my perspective, if I am not going to use a wetsuit, warmer the better!  Thanks to all the responses.  I will certainly try putting on the wetsuit properly to free up the shoulders (they were a bit sore after my first practice, even though I barely swam 15-20 laps).  For this race, given warmer than usual weather and knowing that I won't be the only one, I will stick to not using a wetsuit.

The other issue I have is a fear of getting cramps.  If that happens, I feel like I am better off without a wetsuit.  Also, may be it's just me, I was having a hard time swimming breast stroke with the suit on.  The added buoyancy on the lower part was making my head stay down in the water even when I was trying to come up to breathe.

Anyway, all valuable pointers and I will work on my swim over the winter and be ready for my second season next year.  I certainly do hope we have the swim this weekend.  There was/is rain forecast today but I didn't see any in my area.

Thanks!
Guru 

I'm thinking that the water will be too warm for a wetsuit.  The temp this morning is right around 82F.  Forecast doesn't really call for any cooler weather to bring temp down.  So not holding out too much hope.

Let's hope for less humidity.  I was completely dripping after bike commute in to work this morning.

Maybe the debris will get cleared away a bit over the next few days.

Morning, Nation's Tri-ers!

Forecast is looking almost ideal now -- high 78, low 61, sunny. And only 30% chance of storms Saturday. I rode past the swim start today and they were setting up the buoys. The water looks much much cleaner now than it did a few days ago. Looks like water temps are still low 80s, and it's hot today, so I'm doubting it will be wetsuit legal.

Nice!  Those temps should allow for some fast racing!

If you wear a wetsuit when the temp is above 78 degrees you are not eligible for awards.  I've never heard of a separate class for wetsuits before but this may make it easier to track the non-eligiible people.

On another note- I would bet on the race being wetsuit legal.  Here is a link to a water temp station very close to the course.  Overnight water temps have been hitting 78 degress.  Add to that some possible rain on Saturday, a low overnight air temp on Saturday night, and the race organizer's desire to have it be wetsuit legal for all the first timers and you should be counting on legally wearing it.

http://ddoe.dc.gov/service/anacostia-and-potomac-river-monitoring-program

Just got back from racking my bike for the race and apparently there are tornado warnings for the area. I hope my bike is ok. If you haven't racked yet I'd think about pushing it back as late as possible because of the weather. I live in Ballston and wind is howling and thunder is cracking. 

On another note, did it aggravate anyone else that packet pickup was so far away from bike racking? This is only my 4th race, but PPU has always been right next to the transition area. I also hate driving in the district, so that may have been why I was disproportionately annoyed.

Good luck to my fellow BTers. If anyone feels like coming to say hi tomorrow morning, I'm 4272.

I'm really really happy with how today went -- finished my first oly in 2:51:06. I had a terrible swim and a fantastic bike, and on the whole, a great day. The bike course was amazingly fun and the weather was perfect.

Do anyone else's splits look kind of wonky on the results page? I'm sure my overall time is right, but they have my bike at a 1:22 (Garmin said 1:17) and both my transitions are CRAZY fast, like T1 in :45.

Yup, my splits look much more normal now! I can't get over how amazing the weather was, considering how awful it had been in the week leading up to the race.

I had a great race, although my bike pace was not awesome!

I found the swim to be very lonely with minimal contact.

I had a decent race overall, even though I set a new personal worst for the swim by more than 5 minutes at 32:29.  One of the guys I was there with had the swim clocked at about 1.05 miles on his 910.  That combined with no wetsuit, and the time trial start format (which made good drafting the luck of the draw), blew my hopes of going sub-2:30.

I was able to come back with strong bike and run splits of 1:09 and 50:07 (both Oly PR's) for a finish time 2:35:48, so I'm pleased overall.

I didn't look at the bike distance on my Garmin, but I had the run slightly short at 6.15 miles.

Overall, I found it to be a well-run event on a perfect weather day, on a very fast bike and run course.