The Passionman

I want to write a quick post about the Passionman Tri before I move on with my posts. I truly enjoyed this race this year. I didn't quite hit my goals, but that tells me what I already know: I need to keep training. As I put in a previous post, I placed 9th. My goal was certainly to win the race. In most races I will be aiming to win my age group.

Lets start with the pool swim portion. I can officially say that I hate pool swims to start a triathlon. In the case of the Bucknell Tri (mostly due to time of year) it would be impossible to move the swim outdoors. However, the pool swim throws off you rhythm. We were forced to flip backwards and under the rope every other time. The backwards could have been avoided but I wont go into the specifics of how that could be done. The other problem is with people passing or being held up. No matter how hard you try, you wont seed perfectly for the swim. That being said, I still enjoyed it. Pool swims just shouldn't be you first choice, even as a beginner.

The bike course is, without a doubt, one of my favorite courses! (However, this may be because I designed it last year :) I felt I really did well this year on the bike course. I was somewhere around 42min for the 13.4miles. my goal had been 40mins but not to bad. I really enjoy the rolling hills on the course and the back country roads that they are on.

Finally, it was time for the run portion. When I started triathlons, I HATED running. I still hate running, but every once in a blue moon I find some enjoyment out of it. I think the reason I dislike running is it takes me longer to get there and back. As I run faster, running becomes more tolerable. This is nice because as I get better, I enjoy it more, do it more, and get even better faster.

Again, for those interested in the race blog and the results posted there visit http://passionman.wordpress.com/