SF Triathlon, Treasure Island race report

Runner, biker, swimmer
Originally uploaded by queenjill

This is very belated race post! On November 8, 2008, I did the Olympic distance SF Triathlon on Treasure Island in the relay division with Emily and Lisa. Lisa did the swim leg, I did the bike leg, and Emily did the run. Lisa named our team "Team What Willis Was Talking About" which provided for nearly endless comedy throughout the day as various announcers struggled to make sense of it.

It wasn't exactly a warm day. Lisa did great on the swim -- she was the second woman out of the water, and fourth overall, I think. It was way cold. She could barely run after she got out of the water.

My bike portion was so-so. It was about 24 miles, six laps of a mostly flat course with lots of turns. There was one short climb near the end of each lap. My first two laps were spent basically passing just about everyone I could, in order to get out of their way. Good bike handling skills were not the norm among the people on the bike course, at least while I was out there. I was able to pass a lot of people simply because I could ride around/over/through things without braking while others couldn't (or wouldn't). After my second lap, I found a gap and mostly rode alone, without passing or being passed by many other people.

I tried to keep my speed at at least 19 miles per hour, which was mostly manageable -- I think my average speed (based on Garmin data) was about 18.4 mph. In retrospect I should have pushed it more on the last lap -- I still had something left as I pulled into the transition area.

Emily did great on the run, despite not feeling 100% going into it, and missing out on Gatorade because the guy in front of her grabbed two. In the days after the race, the results showed Team What Willis Was Talking About having finished in sixth place overall, out of all teams (men's, women's, and mixed) in the relay division. However, the results were later revised to show that we actually finished in eight place. Whatever -- still a pretty good showing out of about 27 teams.

Lessons for me for the next triathlon relay: (1) meet the swimmer closer to where she comes out of the water; (2) bring a towel to the swimmer at the transition; (3) push it harder on the last leg/few miles of the bike leg!!