Lanikai Triathlon

The race went very well.  You can see the results here:

http://www.bocahawaii.com/LANIKAI08Overall.TXT

You will have to scroll down a bit to see my results; I came in 104th.  I was surprised with how well the swim went - I was out of the water in about 9 minutes (my posted swim time includes part of the transition from swim to run).  Part of this was a result of what I think was the inadvertent shortening of the course.  One of the buoys snapped off from its mooring while the athletes were in the water and it was pushed to shore by the current.  We just swam after it, resulting in what seemed to be a distinct "rounding off" of the final corner as we turned to head to shore. 

This event did not employ chip timing.  Certainly, this is a bit odd; it seems that just about every event nowadays does use that technology to give the most accurate timing and splits for each individual.  Even the small 5k I ran on base a couple weeks ago, with barely 100 competitors, had chip timing. 

I was not surprised that I had trouble maintaining a good speed / power output on the bike.  I simply haven't been doing enough cycling to have developed my cycling skills enough to maintain a high rate of speed over even a short course triathlon such as this one, with a bike portion barely 10 miles in length.  There was one monster of a hill at the halfway point, though!  That one hurt - but I passed probably 10 people on the way up it!

And then on the run, I was pleased to average a sub-8:00 per mile pace in a fatigued state, although I know that if I had a better running base built up at this point, I could have hammered this course.  It had a few rolling hills and ended with about a half-mile segment on the soft white sand of Kailua Beach.

All in all, not a bad day for a guy who hasn't "tri'd" since summer 2006!  This certainly bodes well for the Half Ironman race that I will run on the Big Island next month (that is, as long as I can keep some semblance of a training program going between now and then - we'll see what my work travel schedule ends up looking like).

GJS