Solid swim. Perfect navigation on the first leg, went wide on the next two. Better navigation could probably brought me down to 7 flat. Lined up in the front and didn't have anyone to draft the whole swim. Not a very physical swim, nice not to have to do battle like we did at Wildflower.

Goal was 7:30, so this was a success!!!!!!

My coach was on the beach and I didn't see him but heard him cheering when I got out. Thanks for coming out Mark, I don't think I actually saw you once during the race, but I heard you at least four times!

Better navigation!!! (seems to be a theme this season)

Practicing transitions for an hour yesterday sure paid off! I confirmed that I would be faster putting on my shoes before grabbing the bike. Skipped the socks for the first time in a race and no problems. Simplicity of a sprint transition is great. Really focused on being deliberate--left leg of wet suit off, right leg of wet suit off, shoe on and affirmatively fastened, next foot... Practiced yesterday to get the helmet buckle on quickly too and that paid off as well. Only snafu was my bike got caught on my gear bag when I pulled it off the rack. Lesson for next time: Make sure the bag will not get in the way of the bike.

Goal was 1:30, so this was a success!!! Thanks to my coach for putting transition practice into my workout plan yesterday. DEFINATELY made a difference in both transitions today and I probably would not have spent time practicing if it hadn't been in the plan.

Bag placement.

Schweet! Unlike last year, traffic wasn't bad. The waves start with elite, then male novice, then female novice. After a ten minute or so break, they send off the first age group wave, which I was in. Made it fun blasting by all the novices on the bike! Got passed by ONE PERSON on the bike, and it was PseudoYams, so I'm okay seeing as it was a Donkey!

Goal was 39:30 so this was a success!!!!

Not much. Felt great.

Took my feet out and rode in on top of my shoes, jumped off and started running. First time I've done this in a race and it worked great!

Goal was 1:00 so this was a success!!!!!

Could have probably had a little more speed going when I jumped off the bike, but there was someone dismounting SMACK in the middle of the lane, so I was a bit cautious.

Pretty solid! Goal was 24:30 so this was a BIG success. Legs were solid coming out of T2, but I was breathing pretty hard the first 200 yards, felt like my throat was a bit constricted, so focused on deep and relaxed breathing. Finally got a groove around .8 miles in. In the second mile I realized I was heel striking and had totally reverted to my old running style. The rest of the run I found myself falling back into this and would "feel" my body to get my foot strike and body alignment back to a more efficient position.

Glad I had done my warm up run on the course in the a.m., as I had decided where I was going to go "all in" to start my sprint to the finish. I pushed well the whole run, kicking it up a notch at the mile 3 sign and putting the hammer down with about .5 mile left.

The track workout I did this week tought me what it felt like to REALLY push on the run. Without that workout, I am sure I would have gone slower on the run.

Fun seeing Yams, Jszat, and Morey on the run. Total pick me up to high five the other Donkeys!

Try to focus on run form more consistently.

Met up with Jszat and Yams to cheer in Morey. Hoovered water, had some Recoverite, kept walking until my HR got down to a reasonable level.


Run fitness.


HR data: yeah, I forgot my HRM only saves one event worth of segment data so I don't have the breakdown. Avg hr was 183, max 196.

For comparison sake, here's the breakdown from last year:
S: 8:37
T1: 1:55
B: 40:17
T2: 1:17
R: 25:18

Total: 1:17:21

I went faster in all five segments this year compared to last, and went below my goal time for all five segments. What could be better than that??? So satisfying to have the training pay off. Thanks to Coach Mark for pushing me (even though it is aimed at IM and not this sprint stuff!).

This race was a blast. Also met some new BT'ers, TripletMom01, ScoobysDad, and Analog_Girly.

Definately got my race fix, which is good as next weekend's Oly at Elkhart Lake is not going to be full effort.