Little Miami Triathlon - Spring 2011 Results

The SPRING 2011 Little Miami Triathlon on Sunday was a great time! The conditions for the biking were actually pretty good without too much wind and in some friendly directions. However we all agreed this time the run was the most difficult - in part because of the heat and humidity.

This year we had 2 teams participate:
Julie(Aunt-in-law) and Sean(cousin-in-law) and were the SHJULIE MCGUIRES
Dave (brother) and I were DOS GEMELOS which means two twins in Spanish.

We are putting our best foot forward...

Meanwhile Molly (sister-in-law) and Dave (fiance-in-law) were there as the ATHLETIC SUPPORTERS.
Esposa Meghan was under the weather and watching my GPS online. My parents always track us by GPS too which is awesome! (Don't worry if the dot stops moving - I am fine - just lost the satellites for a second!)

"Are you the guy with the blog?" - YES I AM!
As more and more people I know are starting to do triathlons, especially canoe triathlons which make it easy to join, I found my self giving them tips from the 4 times I have participated in the Little Miami Triahtlon. Then this turned into a Tips & Tricks blog for the Little Miami Triathlon.

Anyway - while I was on the run I started walking for a bit (it happens) and I heard these nice girls next to me ask "Are you the guy with the blog?" which was totally awesome because it was their first triathlon and they were looking for some info and found my blog! Good thing I was wearing my trade-mark Apple Jacks Jersey! Over 100 people read that blog the week before the triathlon which is pretty good considering only 1200 people even participate in the race! We saw the girls at the end of the race too and they finished and seemed to have really enjoyed it which is awesome!

On a side note Dave had a flat tube on his bike right before the start. Fortunately we had time to change it and had an extra and everything went well. 

On to the results.

I love having an event to benchmark progress over and over...

Canoeing ~6mi [56 min, -3 mins from last FALL]
This was the first time Molly wasn't my partner on the canoe. Molly and I made a great team because we both get really competitive when the gun goes off and we usually peel out of the start and try not to look back at the rest of our heat.

This time Dave and I were a team and it was great! If we were still kids we might have fought all the way down the river but instead we did the peeling out from the start and left our heat in the dust!

With all of the record setting rains we have had the river level seemed high but the river was surprisingly slow. There were some large sections with seemingly no current. I think because the water level was so high we didn't see many if any canoes tip over so the river carnage was minimized this year.

I drank 2 water bottles during the canoe as it was getting hot.

Running ~5mi [65 min, +4 mins from last FALL]
Not a lot to say about the run. It was hot. It was uphill, and it was tough. One of the most impressive things about the run was when I was in a crowd of folks who were running / jogging / or walking at a ~12 min mile pace while Cousin Sean came running by so fast (~ 6 min mile pace) and made everyone look like they were standing still. For comparison Sean finished the run in somewhere around 36 minutes!!! I wish I had his speed. It is a bit demoralizing to see just how far away I am from being in good running shape but hopefully I'll just steadily improve. I am motivated to do more running now to improve in this area - which is good because my usual default is to bike over running when training.

One complaint about the run is the last water area on the run was out of water when I got there and it would have been welcomed as I hit every water area on the way.

Killer Hill + Transition ~0.5mi [14 min, +1 min from last FALL]
The hill is never good. I was hot and tired from the run and knew I was giving time back, but I still stopped several times for ~10 seconds or so to try and catch my breath or let my heart rate get below 200. Dave actually caught me on the hill which was fun to get to the transition area together.

If I could do it again I would have drank a water or Gatorade here before getting on the bike.

Biking ~18mi [75 min, -2 mins from last FALL]
This was the first LMT with clip in pedals. It's a bit of a pain to change shoes at T2 and then get your shoes at the end but I think it's worth it. I always get cramps on the bike ride and while this year was no different they didn't seem as bad. I also think they help me turn over gears a bit easier so it may have been the reason I had my best bike time yet.

I knew I was in trouble from a water standpoint when I finished my first water bottle at mile 4 and then finished my second at mile 7.5! I have since started looking at how I can get more than 2 water bottles on my bike but that may be crazy-talk. I just keep pounding the fluids and still get cramps which is frustrating. If I do a longer biking triathlon I may want 4 water bottles on my bike so we'll see. I ended up taking water at the 2 water stations on the bike which requires you to slow down a bit as they hand you water. One girl gave me blue powerade - ew!

Also - Sean and Julie kept their water bottles for their bikes in a cooler of ice beforehand - I thought about that but didn't do it - might be a good idea next time.

All in all I thought the bike went well - I wish I could have gone even faster but I felt like I pushed it as much as I could that day. Overall I tied my fastest triathlon since the introduction of the "cobbles".

This is a picture of the road surface for the 2.5 miles near the end of the bike section. It gets bumpy and slower which is why we call it the "cobbles".

Well - it was another great triathlon and I look forward to breaking my PR (Personal Record) in the fall!
If you read this blog to this point you must be interested enough to try it in the fall!