Geneva Border War Triathlon

This morning was my first triathlon of the year: the "Border War" at Geneva State Park.

It's a sprint-distance: 1/3 mile(500 meter) swim, 13 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. We had a beautiful morning for it, and since the start was at 7:45, we missed the heat of the day.

My goals for the day ... First, check out some new equipment--my bike and wetsuit, primarily. Second, check out my fitness.

I haven't swam in the open water yet this year, but my pool work has gone well, and I was pretty relaxed going in. Of course, open water is a slightly different beast, and we started swimming directly into the rising sun. It was very difficult to sight on the "out" of the out-and-back course, but somehow I nailed each and every swim marker. It was the first time I've worn the wetsuit in the water, and it was just fine, so no issue there. Out of the water in about 9 minutes. Pretty happy with that.

I also haven't bothered to practice transitions this spring, so I moseyed over to my bike and just took my time. The wetsuit slipped right off and I methodically got my bike gear on. I did catch a father berating his 12-year-old son from the sideline for "moving slowly," so I guess I'm glad he wasn't paying attention to me.

If I ever talk to my kid like that at a "sports event," please, please kick me squarely in the ass.

On to the bike.

The course went out of the park, and on a loop that included the GOL strip and rural roads. It was flat and the Tarmac was in great shape, so it was very fast. I have a new set of Mavic race wheels on the way, so for today I used Jen's wheels (same make/model), and they were very smooth. I averaged 22 mph, per my garmin, for the 13 miles, at my threshold HR. Pretty happy with that.

I wheeled into transition and didn't see too many bikes around, so I felt pretty good about things. I went through the simpler bike-run transition pretty quickly. The legs felt pretty good from the get-go, as I took off at a comfortable pace, around 7:30/mile. I'm a slower runner than a biker, so I'm used to seeing a lot of the people I passed on the bike come back and get me. That's just the way it goes. Sure enough, as I hit the first turn, about a half mile in, I saw about 8 guys within 100 meters of me. By the time I made it to the one mile mark, I was 8 places back!

I held my pace pretty steadily, though. The course is flat, mostly through the woods with a pass by the park marina. I finished with a 7:37 average--very happy with that.

For benchmarking, I'm comparing this to the Crossfit tri last June. Same distance and same kind of terrain (mostly). I was a bit faster today. All in all, a good morning.