Clouds, Plants & Triathlons: St. George Olympic Triathlon

I've been milling over this race for a week now. At first I was just going to spout off negative garbage about the whole event and the weeks leading up to it but... no. First of all, I don't want to get away from the main purpose of this post (the race), and second, nobody wants to read it. And I certainly don't want to write it. So, I have decided that every critique I give myself here, I will also highlight something that went right during the race.

The swim was a simple out and back course. When the horn sounded, the 30 of us in the open division wave swam like maniacs to secure a fast pair of feet. Being the new kid on the block, I had no idea who was a fast swimmer. I have my suspicions that the fast swimmers/triathletes all knew each other, teamed up, and started together. But that may just be an excuse. By the time I broke through the front-line of white water I saw that a pack of 5 swimmers on the far left were well ahead. I kept stroking hard but I couldn't close the gap. I was left to swim 1500m completely on my own.

It's hard to judge your efforts on a new course and with new athletes but I felt my swim was off from what it could/should be. I was out in 6th place (15th place OA) but my time of 24:45 was a good 3 minutes behind the leaders. I know I shouldn't base my performance at St. George on years past, but it's difficult not to. You can only base your performance on yourself and the conditions. However, I did swim in a straight line this time and put on a little entertaining show for the crowds as I tried to wrestle my wetsuit off. Overall, I executed my swim well and without any major flaws, I was just a bit further back than I expected.

Once on the bike I was relatively patient for the first mile or two but as I attempted to start pouring on the power, I could tell that this was not the day. I know what I have been able to do in the past on the bike and I was not doing it. The athletes were just too strong and I was unable to dig my calfs and hamstrings into the back half of the pedal stroke like I remember. The leaders out biked me by a good 5 minutes. Ouch! Seeing that time difference definitely ruffled my feathers. But for some good news, I was luckily able to hold my 6th place position throughout the bike course. So not to bad really.

Now onto the run. Coming into T2 the leaders were already at mile two so a push for the win was easily out of the question. But, I had been working extremely hard on my run so at the very least, I was ready to let loose a ripper 10k and see where it took me.

Again, like the bike, the run was not going to be the magic bullet for today. I had pushed very hard on the bike and my legs were feeling pretty fried. I managed to catch one guy at mile one so that lifted my spirits slightly. At mile 4 I caught another dude and moved into 4th. No one was catching me and on paper it appeared I was having a good run. In the end, I pulled off the second fastest run of the day with a 37:20 and moved up two places on the run!

So I should be happy right? I mustered a 4th place finish in a field of 900 or so. Yes I am happy. It was a great race and I got to see my mom and Spruce the dog learned to swim while he was waiting for me to finish. But at the same time, I know I can do a whole lot better. But that is what keeps us coming back. There is always room for improvement.

Until next time, train hard and stay sane.