Just like last year this was more of a run/swim than a swim. Due to the tide, the water was incredibly shallow for the first half of the swim. We swam parallel to shore with buoys to our right and made a turn clockwise swimming back around the starting buoy and then into shore. For safety reasons, I suppose have shallow water is great but it’s quite peculiar and difficult to swim in water less than 2 feet deep. Did the best I could but never really felt like I got into a comfortable rhythm. Today looking at the garmin GPS data, I did not swim even close to a straight line!! Distance info shows I swam 1.6 miles…don’t know if that’s accurate or true but that certainly wouldn’t help my time.

Disappointed with my swim performance but if I’m being honest it is probably what I should have expected. Swimming has taken a back burner to running and cycling and I need to put in the yards if I want to become a better swimmer. I swam a 28 min last year at this event (and that was severely undertrained as I was recovering from a broken collarbone) so I guess I was expecting a better effort this year, but it was not to be. After the race others seemed disappointed / surprised in their times as well. I agreed and when I mentioned last years collarbone effort they suggested I should have broken it again this year HA!
Fairly long run on the beach and up and over a retaining wall onto the pavement of the parking lot. Then entered transition in the ‘back’ by running to the outside and around the transition area.

Uneventful transition.

Time to see if the increased hard efforts on the bike paid off. My bike computer wasn’t working for some reason so I was flying blind in terms of cadence and speed / distance. Oh well, guess I’ll have to rely on my Garmin which will show my 1 mi splits. Need to keep in under 3 min/mile average to beat my goal of 1:15. Started off sub 3 mins for every mile with HR in the high 160s. There was one section of the course where my mile splits would rise just above 3 mins. Not sure if it was due to bumpy road or false flat but it just always seemed harder to maintain pace on that section. By the end of lap 3 I was starting to feel a bit tired and could see my time fading slowly. My HR was also significantly lower than my first 3 laps, dipping into the mid to low 150s. This is probably because although I’ve added hard efforts on the bike (especially really intense spin sessions and sufferfest sessions) they’ve been 45-60 mins and not 1 hour plus. I need to add distance and endurance rides as well. Downed a gu at the start of the last lap and dug down and tried to finish strong…beat my sub 1:15 goal by 24 seconds, WOO! 1:14:46. Happy as I feel I biked to my current ability level and also executed a bike that set up for a good run. Looking at the HR versus pace data after the race I definitely think fatigue was a factor. You can see the slow downward trend in my speed on my splits and also my AHR for each split. Was I not giving a consistent effort or could I have pushed harder and tried to maintain a higher HR? Maybe but not sure my run wouldn’t have suffered because of it.

More TiTS! The spin classes and sufferfest has helped me improve speed but I need to do longer rides as well. Started to feel gassed in the later laps and I imagine my sinking HR is an indicator of my lack of endurance on the bike. Happy with my improvements..did a 1:17:01 a year ago.

Uneventful

Slightly different run course this year. Two aid stations, one at mile one and mile 2. Course was run to the second aid station, turn-around and back to first aid station, another turn-around and back to farthest aid station, then all the way back to the finish. All along the ocean and flat. Of all the disciplines I’ve really seen the biggest improvement in my running which is especially great given the modest weekly mileage I put in. I was disappointed at my last Olympic in May as I definitely did not run to my abilities. Not only was I slow but I was not mentally tough and gave in to the temptation to walk. I decided today would be different. I started out and targeted a HR of mid to high 160s and got into a rhythm and gave my legs a chance to wake up. Garmin said I was running between 7 and 7:20 min miles so I decided to keep this pace until the 3 or 4 mile mark and re-assess how I feel. Hit the first aid station at the 2 mile mark feeling fine, HR still in high 160s. The next aid station seemed to take forever to get to and I started to feel a slight twinge of a cramp in my left quad. Grabbed a cup of HEED+water when I hit the aid station and kept pace. HEED seemed to do the trick. Made it back to the final turn-around and started to head home. HR had now drifted to low 170s and tried to hang on to the finish. Was ready to be there when I passed the aid station with 1 mile to go but told myself only 7ish more minutes of pain and you’re done. Started to have those dark thoughts of ‘you can just walk for a minute’…even with the finish line in sight I felt that way. Fought through it and finished as strong as I could. Completely gassed and extremely happy with my effort and mental toughness. Finished the run in 44:04 and 2:35:11 overall besting my running goal and finishing smack dab in the middle of my expected finish time!!

Nothing - well executed run!

I’m happy with my performance. My completely honest assessment of my race / myself:
Swim: Improvement to be desired but based on what I put in this is what I should expect. Swimming went on the wayside in favor of cycling and running and it showed. If I don’t put in the yards and spend time improving my technique I honestly can’t expect to swim faster. Disappointing if only because my bike and run placements were reasonably higher than swimming and could have improved placement with a better swim. Off to the pool!!
Bike: Happy with this performance. Think the spinning and sufferfest interval efforts helped my top-end speed. I did feel tired toward the end (and the sinking HR I would think is an indication of tiring) and think I need more longer rides to also work on endurance. I do feel though that I biked to the best of my current ability level and set myself up for a good run. Going to keep putting in the time as I improved by over 2 mins from last year and 1 min better than last Olympic earlier this year.
Run: Very pleased with my run as I feel I finally ran to my ability level. I fought through mental fatigue and dealt with minor cramping to run a race I was proud of. Excited to see how much more I can improve with continued training!



Well run event. Seemed like less participation than last year though. Improvement this year by changing the run course to allow for more opportunities for aid stations. Swim was again peculiar with shallow water but I don’t imagine there’s much they can do about that…it’s probably also partially done for safety considerations. Really great and enthusiastic volunteers this year – slapping high fives and saying motivating words. I was sure to thank as many as I could. Stayed at the beach to relax afterwards and the Mossman crew stayed and cheered for finishers at the 4 hour mark. My favorite finisher was Mr. Cook at 79 years old!! Saw him on the bike course while I was running looking strong in his Team USA Tri suit with his name on it. What an inspiration!!