Chisago Triathlon (My 2nd Half Iron - Mile by Mile)

Areas for improvement are italicized. 

I had my first 'good' triathlon at Chisago that occurred with no major issues (didn't swim head-on into another wave of racers, no wrong turns, etc). This is comparing my performance there to my performance at Liberty Tri 7 weeks earlier.

Start
It was just over 50 degrees at the start with pretty strong north winds. The only piece of equipment I forgot was my race belt to hold my number, but luckily my friend had string in his truck so I was able to tie it to me for the run portion. The water was very choppy but warm. My last tri I had immense trouble with swimming straight given the lack of big blue lines on the bottom of the lake but I had practiced twice/week to correct that. As the horn blew and we took off, my goal was to not waste energy swimming in zig-zags.


Swim
I swam right to the first buoy, no problem. Lots of getting kicked, hit with hands, etc. Also, with my increased sighting I was able to see all of the people making the mistake I made last time and swimming sideways, diagonally and every other direction.

Breathing every third stroke, and sighting every third breath was working well. The first few buoys were close to each other because they were also for the "sprint distance" course and I stayed right along the inside of the course straight from one to the next, not going more than a couple feet left or right. After we were past the close buoys, the distance between them probably tripled and they became harder to spot because they would each be so far away from the last. I started sighting every other breath (always on my right side, which I am better currently and I know this isn't symmetrical, but it made the most sense). This worked great and I continued with my goal of going straight. I don't kick much or at all during the swim, partially in an effort to save my legs moreso for the bike/run.

Old Time: 47 min
New Time: 41 min (1:57/100 Yards, or 4 lengths of many lap pools)
Savings: 6 minutes, or 12.7%


Bike

From MapMyRun

Coming out of the water and stripping the wetsuit so I was down to tri shorts and a tri top (tank-top) was incredibly cold today for the first few miles. The biting wind (10mph NNW, over long farms) made the course difficult despite the general flatness and rolling hills.

Personally, I planned pretty well and had one bottle of water and one bottle of water and HEED (similar to Gatorade) plus two Gu's in my tri-top. There was also bottle exchanges at miles 20 and 32. I may have wanted to keep an empty water bottle holder on my bike as I grabbed a Gatorade at mile 20 and then had to hold it in my hands for 12 miles to avoid littering.

My average speed on each mile varied from 28.5mph to 14.4mph. Mainly, I was trying to keep my RPMs for my pedal speed at around 95. My left hip, in the IT Band area, was sore which I believe was caused by doing two days of bike speedwork immediately before the race. In the future, I would potentially limit biking the two days before the event. It was causing pain from mile 10-56, but did not seem to affect my speed. Not making a wrong turn certainly saved me time and made up for the slower performance from heavy legs and strong winds. I had to pee from about 10 miles in, but prayed I could hold it. Drank both water bottles, Gatorade, one Gu and one Hammer Gel to make sure if anything I was overhydrating and eating to keep me sharp for the run. That, I believe, paid dividends.

Old Time: 3:18
New Time: 2:58 (19.1mph)
Savings: 20 minutes or 10.1%


Run

From MapMyRun

As anyone who knows me knows, the run is definitely the part I look forward to. At Liberty, I did not have my GPS ready to go, so the first few miles it was trying to find the satellite and I couldn't tell how fast I was running. I was running a little too fast (6:30ish), and paid for it a little bit in later miles finishing with a 7:05 average pace. This time, I wanted close to even splits, although I feared I would probably not be able to do quite 7:05 as I have been adding a lot of volume and distance without as much speedwork in recent weeks.

As mentioned earlier, I had to tie my race number around my waist with string due to forgetting the race belt. The sun was finally out and the weather warmed up to the upper 60s.  From there, I took off at about a 7:05 pace which felt comfortable. Then I just ran as I felt comfortable, making every effort to encourage every person that I passed or came across on the road and thanking every volunteer to took time out of their weekend to make the race happen. I drank water or Gatorade as I felt comfortable every 3 miles or so and also took two Hammer Gels during the run. Overall, felt wonderful and as though I could have ran this pace forever. Below are the splits. Note, that the bathroom break that started bothering me 2.5 hours earlier when I was 10 miles into the run finally became too much to bear during mile 5 and I wasted literally 70 seconds relieving myself. Otherwise, I felt that the splits were even or slightly negative when wind and hills were factored in.

Mile	Split Pace
1 mi	07:13 min/mi
2 mi	06:55 min/mi
3 mi	06:49 min/mi
4 mi	06:49 min/mi
5 mi	08:20 min/mi
6 mi	07:11 min/mi
7 mi	07:11 min/mi
8 mi	06:45 min/mi
9 mi	06:48 min/mi
10 mi	06:44 min/mi
11 mi	06:47 min/mi
12 mi	06:59 min/mi
13.1 mi	07:03 min/mi

Old Time: 1:35 (7:05/mi)
New Time: 1:30 (6:53/mi)
Savings: 5 minutes or 5.3%


Overall:
Old Time: 5:45
New Time: 5:16
Savings: 29 minutes or 8.41% 

Thanks for reading and shoot me a message on Twitter @rosshedlund with any comments or a link to your experiences!

Triathlon Tips For A Runner

Like most runners, I am clueless about 2/3 of a triathlon and really just can't wait for that final event. That being said, here are a few tips from some experience triathletes to help out runners:

Some tips from my old roommate Chris Leiferman (follow him on Twitter @chris1tri), and when I say tips, I mean answering questions like:

- "Can you pee in your wetsuit?" (answer is yes, even if you're not in the water)



- "How many RPMs should you be pedaling at?" (answer is 90-100, because "Triathletes have aerobic capacity, but are weak in leg strength")
- "Do you really need two water bottles for a 56 mile ride?" (answer is yes, overhydrate on the bike and drink every 15 minutes, eat every hour to help prep for the run)
- "How do you know if you're swimming straight given that nobody paints a blue line on the bottom of a lake?" (answer is that you need to 'sight' by looking up every few strokes)


Had another friend from the Army that wishes to remain anonymous that gave me some other tips:

"You can't win the race in the swim, but you can certainly lose it" (ie, from swimming too hard and tiring yourself out for the bike and run)

"You can get as fancy of a bike as you want, but you still have to pedal it, and trust me, I passed a lot people with some really fancy tri bikes"

"Bike for show, run for dough"