More Triathlon News

Does it every seem like all I ever post is race news?

I did my first Olympic Distance triathlon this morning. I was a bit nervous for this race because I've never riden my bike more than 25 miles, which was the race distance, never swam more than a mile without stopping, which is the swim distance and have never done a workout longer than an hour and half, which is a good hour less than my anticipated finish time.

Anyway, my strategy was to take it relatively easy on the swim. I found a guy swimming at about the pace I wanted and drafted off him for almost the entire race. He probably got annoyed that I kept touching his feet, but he never got so annoyed as to kick me in the face. The drafting seemed to help a lot and I felt really good coming out of the water. I was somewhere near 50th place out of about 200, and looking back on it I probably should have gone out harder.

I was about 40th place after the bike. I love passing people on $6,000 bikes with $300 racing helmets. I feel obligated to report that I averaged 21.7 miles per hour on the bike, which is slightly faster than Dallen did on his triathlon last week, but in the interest of full disclosure, the moderate tailwind helped me out a bit. Climbing Hilltop was a beast, but flying down it at over 40 MPH was a blast.

I felt strong on the run and worked my way up to about 30th place, but I hit the wall at the 4 mile mark and got passed by a bunch of people, especially at the end.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with my 36th place finish and time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and change. I even got 3rd place in my age group. Just a little dissapointed that I couldn't finish strong. Results Here. http://milliseconds.com/participants/final_list/overall/142875