Black Diamond Triathlon

This morning was the last tri of the season, an olympic. Well, sort of an olympic - the bike course was shortened by two miles due to construction, and there wasn't a way to extend a different section of the course to make the distance come out correct.

First of all, this event was far more crowded than I expected. As I moved through the packet pickup line I found out that in addition to the sprint and olympic triathlons, there were also a half-marathon and a duathlon. No wonder - this event is usually fairly small but this morning it was unexpectedly busy.

My goal was to improve my time from Cascades Edge, a tri held in early June that is the same course as Black Diamond. However, since the bike courses were different it is difficult to compare times. I'll probably try anyway tomorrow, calculating average speed on the bike and deducting how long two miles would have taken... My other goal of beating three hours fell short by about 10 or 15 seconds! So, not the strongest finish to the season.

The swim was delayed by 15 minutes as we waited for fog to lift, so the buoys were visible. The swim course was a double loop of a diamond shaped course, and we waited until the farthest buoy came into view. Unfortunately, the fog came back during the swim, as I could not at all see the far buoy from the corner buoy. I'm an OK swimmer, not fast but with the wetsuit for warmth and flotation (plus I wore the sleeve inserts for extra warmth), I am comfortable enough to grind it out. However, I discovered that I really need to see the next target to swim towards, as sighting off other swimmers and just moving into the fog was making me nervous.

It was still overcast when I started the bike course, and fairly chilly, so I decided to wear a jacket over my wet bike jersey. So I'm sure T1 was slow as I had to wrestle with the sleeve inserts, move my race number, and put a jacket on. The bike went well otherwise.

I felt like I had a great run - I payed attention and only one person passed me during the run, while I passed a dozen or more people. Of course, due to wave starts many of the women I passed were already 5 minutes ahead of me. Plus as slow as I am on the bike I'm not exactly finishing with the most competitive and fastest runners.

Results are up: I did 3:00:13, just 13 seconds over three hours. But since the bike course was 2 miles short I did slower than at Cascades Edge in June. My swim was 39:33, slow but expected as I took extra sighting breaks. Bike was 1:22:33, which was about average for me (16.4 mph over rolling hills). I did have a great run though, 50:11, which is only 3 minutes slower than my straight 10K PR set on a flat course, and this tri run course had a few small hills. So that's a great way to end the tri season, with a great run. Another exciting development did occur - for the first time, I didn't finish last in my division (once), or second to last (3 times). I finished ahead of 2 others in my division! ;)

This is a nice event but I think I would have been just as happy to end the season at the Kirkland tri. Late September is starting to push your luck for good weather and warm days in this area.