How To Learn From Your Triathlon Mistakes - The Hawaii Comedy of Errors...

Between a knee injury and saddle sores earlier in the week, and lots of things not going as planned during the race, Hawaii 70.3 turned into a comedy of errors! This video says it all (turns out, however, I wasn't in transition looking for my run bag as long as I say in the video - I only lost about 2 minutes there).

Below this video, I'll tell you what I learned from my triathlon mistakes...



So what did I learn from my mistakes at Hawaii 70.3?

1) Know the course - the simple act of *counting* the buoys prior to the race would have put up a mental red flag for me as soon as our swim pack turned towards the finish and I realized we were one buoy short. That would have been a simple count that literally would have saved a good 300-400 yards of extra swimming.

2) Trust yourself - volunteers, as freaking awesome as they are to generously give their time, simply do not have as much skin in the game as you, and you shouldn't rely on them 100% to find your bags. Rather than trusting where volunteers were sending me in transition, I should have simply followed the numbers and found my run bag that way (T2 is in a different place than T1 in this race, so you don't actually *see* where your run bag is prior to getting there...)

3) Understand how dominoes work - earlier in the week, I rode the 112 mile Hawaii Ironman course with a "saddlesore" on my butt. Simply shifting slightly away from that uncomfortable spot set up a chain reaction that resulted in a knee injury and lots of mental stress prior to the race. Understand that when one domino falls, many can follow if you're not careful.

My overall division placing in this race was 5th swim, 5th bike, 7th run, 7th overall.

And for you gear and nutrition geeks, here is what I used in the race:

Nutrition/Gear notes:

-Day before: Millenium Sports Somnidren GH for sleep

-2 hours pre-swim: 4 LivingFuel SuperGreens 

-30 minutes pre-swim: 1 Nutrarev, 1 Energy28 and 1 delta-E, 20 Sprays Magnesium Oil, 10 Master Amino Pattern capsules, 4 Extreme Endurance

-Skinsuit: BlueSeventy Point Zero 3

-Google: Blue Seventy Element

Bike notes:

-Shoes: Louis Garneau Tri-Speed shoes

-Helmet: Gray Aero helmet

-Wheels: Shimano C-50

-Tires: Challenge Triathlon

-Groupo: Shimano Dura-Ace

-Seat: Adamo ISM Road Saddle

-Sunglasses: Native Eyewear

-One gel every 20 minutes, half bag of GU Chomps at end of each hour, water when thirsty.

Run notes:

-Shoes: K-Swiss K-Ruuz (although the guy ahead of me was wearing Vibrams, which, with the undulating, golf course run, I'd actually consider racing if I do this race again)

-One gel every 30 minutes, switched to Coke at 15K mark, with 4oz Coke every aid station.

And a big thanks to all my sponsors. Check them all out here.