Desert International Olympic Triathlon 2012 recap

Got up, ate my PB&J sandwich, had some coffee and a banana and headed out. Got to the event parking, grabbed my gear and setup in the transition area. Stretched, ran for 2-3 mins, stretched a bit more. Went into the water and swam for a few mins.

As usual, swimming is my weakest discipline. I actually felt pretty good during the swim, but when I got passed by quite a few women from the wave behind me I knew that I did not clear 22 mins as I hoped. As you can tell, not a fan of swimming. It shows :) Swim time 26:09.

I got completely shafted with the bike rack position. I had to run through the entire transition to the exit - prolly a good 0.15 mile.  This was my race on my newly purchased bike, with deep dish wheels and tubular tires. I did not ride with the tubulars that much, and I kinda got overexcited with inflating them to 140 psi. Cornering was tricky to say the least. This course happened to have a sh..tload of cornering. So I had to slow down. On the other hand, I only got passed by 6 riders, all but 1 with a disk wheel. The road was a little rough, and the no-drafting thing was enforced sparingly. On the way back, I got blocked by a group that was 5 deep and 3 wide. And then on the last hill I somehow dropped the chain. That cost me 2 mins. This was a second hand bike, and perhaps the chain needs to be changed. I think that I will probably stick with the clinchers from now on. Tubulars make me nervous :) Bike time 1:06.

I've decided to take it easy on the run, since I did quite a few running events this winter and the left knee was starting to get a chrono flare up again. Wanted to keep under 7:30, but not push it. I did just that for 5 miles. Somehow managed to get shoelaces come untied after the 2st mile, so there goes 30 seconds of time. Then after the last mile I started acting like  an alcoholic that in attempts to quit drinking starts taking little sips - and just downs the remaining half a glass. The knee was getting a little tender from crappy surfaces. Drinking stations were set up at mile 1 and mile 2.7 of the run. Not entirely logical, but it was enough for me. Some people really suffered as they would have benefited from drinking every mile. Needed to rest the knew before the slew of events in April and May. Run time 44:22.

In the finisher section, stretched, ate some grub, drank a bottle of water, and then went and dipped in the lake in lieu of ice bath. That was awesome! Chatted with some folks and headed to the transition area. Packed my stuff and back to the car.

Overall -  I liked the race  - a nice chill event, unexpectedly competitive. I will be back next year, and this time I ain't running no 7:30 miles :)