My swims have been tough lately due to the arm injury I suffered in my accident a couple of weeks ago. I almost didn't do the triathlon. While I'm glad I came, I did have some problems in the water. Right off the bat, my sore arm was kicked pretty hard. The pain slowed me down BIG TIME. I wasn't able to pull ahead of the group and spent the first 1/3 of the race in a choppy mess. This is my 3rd open water tri, and was definitely my worst swim, at least for the first 1/3. Once I was able to round the first bouy, I was able to relax a bit and settle into my normal rythm. I didn't have the strength to push the pace, though.

At one point in time, I was clocked in the side of the head right as I was coming up for a breath. This forced me to stop for a brief second. As I looked over at the guy, I realized that it was Billy (Brappleye3). He had a big grin on his face.

Start wide of the group if I'm not in condition to be pulling ahead. I knew I was injured and shouldn't have risked it. I should have started behind or to the outside of the chaos.

Oh, and I'll stay away from Billy next time!

I don't know where to start here. Usually I'm pretty good at transition. But I'm not usually trying to get my suit off with only one arm. I thought there would be wetsuit strippers, but there weren't. I had to run to transition and pull my own suit off. Because of the injury, I basically had to do it with only my left arm. It took a LONG time. And it doesn't help that my wetsuit caught on the pedal of my bike as I started running away.

Other than the suit, the transition went quickly.

Not wreck my bike and mess up my arm 2 weeks before the tri.

Usually I excel at the bike during the tri. This course is the exception. I do better when I have long stretches where I don't have to turn and accelerate much.

The cornering on this one killed my time. Partially due to pain in the arm and partially due to not feeling comfortable cornering hard yet, I lost some time on the turns. I'm sure I'll pick this up at the next one, though.

Once again, not injure myself prior to the race...

I saw Billy in transition and realized I'd have to gain some time on him in transition. This transition was better than the first, but still not my best.

Move faster.

I was passed by one person on the run and managed to pass 3-4. With the lack of training (and bricks specifically) that I've done lately I was happy just to hold on. I did have one clyde (tall guy like me) who was bearing down on me, but I sped up for the 2nd half and left him behind. Fortunately for him, I didn't register as a clyde :)

It took me a mile to realize that I needed to shorten my stride and pick up the cadence. I should have done this from the beginning.

I jogged back up the path to meet Brett (UTTriMan) and ran back with him.


conditioning, conditioning, conditioning


This is the first race that the SBR guys have put on, so there was a little bit of confusion during the week leading up to it. But race day went off without a hitch. Everything started on time and seemed pretty well organized. The course was beautiful. I've lived in Utah almost all of my life and have never been to the state park. It's a great venue for a tri.