Triathlon at Retirement

Four days in Omaha of several slightly different events: triathlon, duathlon (run-bike-run), Aquabike (swim - bike), Aquathlon (Swim-run) and relays! Several competitions of National Championship status and qualifiers for world championships. For triathlon, which is my main focus, the shorter distances are covered: supersprint and draft legal sprint. But this year, I tried supersprint duathlon as well. Three hours later I did the supersprint triathlon. The distances are so short that I figured I could handle both competitions the same day. At the duathlon start 7 am, I met some friends from previous competitions and got talking. The super sprint is a time trial with people starting every 3 seconds, and I was so distracted that I almost missed my own start and lost a few seconds right there! I also forgot to start my smart watch, so I have no recording of the race I took up the chase and passed a lot of people on the first run which was abut 1 km, but I don't think I was closing in

Capital of Texas Triathlon took place in Austin (of course) May 27. I did the sprint distance, thinking it would be a nice warmup to the Multisport nationals the following week. It was my first triathlon since October last year (except winter triathlon in February) and I was looking forward to it. This is a big race with lots of participants. Texas has been very hot recently and Austin was no exception, maybe even worse because of the city effect. At the morning of the race, I was overheating just setting up transition. How would this play out? My tactic was to respect the heat, not to push hard and to stop at all drink stations.  The swim was of course not wet suit legal, and I think that works for me. I felt the swim went well, I kept up, or overtook, most swimmers in my wave (women over 50). The river was a little low and I got entangled in seaweed several times.  At T1, I gave myself time to take a mug of sports drink. Bike leg also felt good, I pushed hard without exhausting mysel