Race Report: Olympic Triathlon June 16th, Middlebury, CT

This was my first tri for the season:

Pre-race nutrition: Bowl of cereal, ~12oz of powerade, and an AccelGel ~20 minutes before race start.

Swim: The water was 72 degrees, perfect with my wetsuit. I have to admit the swim looked kind of intimidating with the diamond shape they had set up. Nonetheless, the gun went off and there I went. My only problem with the swim was that my wetsuit was tugging on my right arm. I should have pulled that sleeve up more. I didn't notice when I warmed up prior to race start, but as I got going it was annoying. Lesson learned. The swim went well, although I felt slow. Turns out my time was 38:44, which is pretty consistent with previous oly tris I have done, so I was happy.

T1: Had a bit of trouble getting my right leg out of the wetsuit-- other than that, no qualms. Time 1:24

Bike: Took an AccelGel at the start of the bike and another at the 14 mile point. I also drank close to 12oz of powerade and ~6oz of water. This was a pretty hilly course, but I was able to pass quite a few people during this leg. Tough course, but it went smoothly. Also, it was great having Shark support (my tri club) cheering us on. Time 1:27:49

T2: In and out in 53 seconds.

Run: This was a great run for me. I tend to average between 9:30 and 10:30 on olympic tri run legs that I've done in the past. I have noticed some improvement in my pace ever since I completed my first marathon in April and am happy to say that I finished the run in 50:58 for a pace of approx. 8:40/mi (the run was a little shorter than 10k). Nutrition: I alternated between gatorade and water at each aid station. I also dumped water over my head at almost all the aid stations, which helped me stay cool throughout the run. This run course was more hilly that I expected (I should have scouted the course more prior) but I had run a lot of hills in training, so it was not a huge problem.

Overall time: 2:59:46, which was good enough for 3rd in my age group (not sure how many were in my AG though). I was just stoked to finish under 3 hrs, which is a PR for me. It was great racing with my tri club, the Shoreline Sharks. The run course was a two loop out and back, so I was able to see many of the Sharks throughout the run, which helped bigtime!This was a great race-- I would definitely do it again.