Third triathlon of the season in the books. This was an Olympic distance triathlon, thus I had a goal of 2:35. This goal would represent approximately 18 minute improvement over last years time of 2:53. I felt confident of this goal, however my time did come up short: 2:47:36. The table below compares the last three years:
| Discipline | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 |
| Swim | 27:40 | 28:44 | 31:37 |
| T1 | 2:20 | 2:49 | 3:22 |
| Bike | 1:09:39 | 1:08:24 | 1:09:10 |
| T2 | 2:05 | 3:12 | 2:28 |
| Run | 1:05:50 | 1:10:36 | 1:06:45 |
| Total | 2:47:36 | 2:53:45 | 2:53:13 |
Swim (4th in class)
The past two years, there has always been a nice swim warm-up area. However, for some reason this year, they were not allowing people to warm-up for the swim. If I would have known this I would have brought some bands or something to help get the muscles warmed up.
Other than the warm-up issue, the swim was uneventful. The previous two years, there was always an issue with the sun in your eyes on the swim back in. This wasn’t a problem this year at all. My swim lines could improve a little bit, but still happy with the one minute improvement in swim time.
T1 and Bike (5th in class)
The transition area is skinny and LONG. Not only that, it’s a rough road, thus running barefoot was an issue for me. My feet were screaming by the time I got to the exit. When I finally got my feet in my shoes, I had to take them back out to remove all the small pebbles.
Once I was on the bike, things went smooth. The time was just a minute slower than last year, however my average speed was the same since it was slightly longer this year. Previous years the turn-around was before Ivan Road, however this year it was after Ivan Road.
What is strange is that my Garmin 910xt did not record any data from my bike or run. It captured my swim just fine, but nothing else. Further research shows there is an issue with the 2.7 software on the Garmin 910xt. Garmin recommends reloading 2.6 until they fix the issue. The problem with that is that you have to call to have them walk you through this. I’ll wait another week, but if there is no patch, I’ll need to reinstall 2.6 for my next triathlon.
T2 and Run
Much like T1, my transition times were down quite a bit. In 2012, I left a lot of ‘fat’ on the table with my T-times. Thus this year I was going to put additional focus on getting in and out of t-area. Once I did get out, I had to stop to remove pebbles from my shoes.
As usual, the run was terrible. I just couldn’t find my legs at all. In addition, it felt like the heat index spiked. I felt mentally defeated and physically exhausted. It was everything I could do to cross that finish line. I thought for sure my time would be slower than 2012, thus I was very shocked to see I was actually 5 minutes faster. My time should still be at least 55 minutes.
What I learned was that I need more bike/run bricks in my training. I need to get my legs prepared for the transition so they can recover and increase pace faster. That will be my focus before my next triathlon.
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