Waterfront at Pu'uloa Sprint Triathlon (Summary)

Bottom line what an excellent morning. Grace, Kyle, Ti and my Tri bro Matt all came to cheer me on.  A little swim, Chewed on a few toes, Had my toes chewed on some. A little bike,  Hate those carbon fiber bikes as you can tell it's one of them just before they pass you. ..Grrrr.. I know it about the motor first and the bike second, I get that.  A little run.  First time to run without socks  in my goodwill saucony running shoes that I picked up for 4 bucks. Chewed a nice hole in my ankle that will smart for sometime. What do you expect for 4 bucks.  I will not be so cheap for the next run.   I have had some very good swims in practice and besides the crazy start I came in about the middle of the pack in my age group.  I really enjoy swimming so no surprise there.  The bike was disappointing but real..  I need to focus more here.  The run was as expected.. I need to put this above swimming... Problem is I always practice what I enjoy first and work my way down. Swim, Bike and Run.   Change of plan.  Running will go first and work the other way.     So keeping it real what could I have done to just take out the dude ahead of me.



I took him in the swim and T1, He passed me in the Bike and pushed the lead by almost 2 minutes.  I took him by 20 second in T2. He took me in the run by exactly 1 minutes So I needed to do the course 3 minutes faster.

Continue to swim and improve my stroke.  My form went to hell and I could have complete the swim faster. But it is what it is. The start was more difficult than I expected.  I will be better prepared the next time.  The bike training is long and I seem to skip this because I get off work late. Looks like I will be enrolling in a spinning class that I can do in the evenings. Work is not going to get easier any time soon.  Maybe I need to have the bike fitted as a new bike is out of the question. A pair of Aero bars would make me more aero dynamic.. How about sleeping with Lance Armstrong's new book under my pillow.  Anyway then there is the run.  How to shave 1 minute off my time.  Shoes...yes.. I could feel the skin start to separate on my ankle at the 2 mile mark and the red tissue underneath start to send a few wonderful warning signs up my leg.  That had to slow me down.  But that not enough.  Form yes I have my Chi running CD that Matt loaned me.  ummm.. How about dropping 10 more pounds... yes that is the faster and easies solution.  That should give me some speed and from looking at the videos on the last 3 posts the most obvious fix.
193 people entered this Triathlon including some of the elite boys and girls. I placed 128 and 11th in my age group.. Do I have more... Oh hell yes... Honolulu Tri here I come. Thinner and better prepared...
Aloha.

Waterfront at Pu'uloa Sprint Triathlon (Run)

After exiting T2 my legs felt like I had stepped in cement.  It took a good mile for this feeling to go away and even then I could not seem to pick up the pace.  At about 1.5 miles I sucked up a gel to see if it would revive the legs and give me some speed.  Running is my weak link because of some screws and hole in one knee due to a quad runner mishap but hey I'm running so all is good.   As expected a number of people passed me and even when it's expected it doesn't make it go down any easier.  To put this all into perspective I just started focusing on the person in front of me and made and effort to pass them.  The run itself was great.  It's route was in a residential area along the beach and then around a lagoon then back again. Many houses had people cheering you on and giving you encouragement. It made it an easier run than I expected. My run time was 35:12 at a pace of 10:04. a full minute behind my training pace.  Norm you have work to do.

Waterfront at Pu'uloa Sprint Triathlon (Bike)

Exited T1 and settled in for the 12 mile ride. This course has one loop and then you ride through a residential area followed by a commercial rode with traffic are and then back into the military housing on a road that I have never seen open.   It started out pretty good but I started to get passed every 5 minutes by a number of bikes. My good swim quickly evaporating as bike after bike passed me. It pissed me off.  I looked at my HRM to see if I was slacking and I was riding at 153 PBM again which is above my training HR.  My legs felt good and I was riding at my pace of 21 mph but everyone else was just riding faster.  It seemed like the bike leg was over in a flash as I was not able to finish my bottle of sports drink before it was time to get off.  Sorry no bike pictures    Bike time was 36.10  T2 was 1.03

Waterfront at Pu'uloa Sprint Triathlon (Swim)

The start was two waves, All age groups men followed by Women and Relays.  I expected a running start and that is what I trained for but it ending up being a one loop water start.  I did  my standard run up and down the beach to get my heart rate up to my target of 140 and entered the water.

 For those of you who have never done a triathlon or an open water swim the start will be hard to explain but here goes.  Matt my triathlon bro coached me on the start to keep a hand out in front of me and look for blue water before getting into my stroke.  Advice well taken.  It was a bit crazy and not something I had not trained for.   I swam over people, got kicked a few time and had people swim over me.

  If my hand has not been there for protection I would have lost my goggles within the first minute. I'm  pretty comfortable in the water but it took me some time to find blue water so I could get into my stroke. My time suffered as a result of this so I will need to work on a better plan for next time.
  At turn one I went wide and picked a few places as everyone was stuck next to the buoy and at last found some blue water and started to settle in for the swim. Turn two was pretty much the same with a number of people bunched up around the buoy  Once I rounded turn two I was stroking for the final buoy and the beach. My exit worked as planned and I was able to ride a wave all the way into 6 inchs of water and stand up.  Looked at my HRM and gee I was at 160 which is 20 bpm above my training rate of 140.  I'm telling myself got to get this down or your going to flame out at the end. Swim time was 11:58.  T1 was 1.27 and went pretty much as planned.  I can see areas that will help me shave this down.  I rinsed my feet to get the sand off with water from a bottle. Others had a dip bucket and the tops guys just skipped this all together.  Below is the bike and the transition set up.  No it's not the tricked out Trek with zip wheels. .