Myrtle Beach Race report of sorts

This is a long overdue race report from Myrtle Beach National Championships. Not quite a month late but from what I understand, there are no rules or limitations on past posting a blog. Plus on the positive side, I can embellish and exaggerate as much as I want and blame it on my “forgetfulness”.


Rather than a minute by minute, mile by mile race report, I will stick to some highlights, and lessons learned. I will skip the low lights because, to be very honest, there were none. It was a great race for me.

One thing that really stuck me with this race was the caliber of athlete racing. It was the National Championship and I am not sure why it surprised me but it did. Most triathlons are a mix of skills, body shapes, and equipment. Here at Myrtle Beach, everyone was lean and muscular. All their equipment was carbon-fiber, and aerodynamic. Despite the field being so experienced, I was amazed at the reaction to the swim being canceled. A few days before the race, a tropical storm came through the coastal states and dumped a huge amount of rain into the areas. All the run-off put a large amount of water and e-coli into the waterway. About an hour before the race start, they race producers announced that the swim portion was canceled because of high e-coli bacteria. When they made that announcement, you would have thought that they had announced that the Nancy Grace show was canceled or everyone was getting a free car from Oprah. I never realized that triathletes disliked 1/3 of their sport. The entire transition area had a carnival like atmosphere from that point on.

I was riding a loaner bike because my frame had cracked (again). I was breaking the first rule of triathlon, “Nothing new on race day”. I had, at most, ridden about 50 miles on this bike and I ended up having my best bike time ever. I averaged over 20 MPH across the 56 miles. I won’t lie; it hurt to push myself as hard as I did. In hindsight, it was probably good that I was on the new bike. Had I experienced that pain on my old frame, I might have backed off. Who knows??? Regardless, it was a great ride. It was on flat roads, with some wind but for the most part the conditions were great for riding.

My run was great also. It was not my best run but it was only two seconds slower than my Galveston Half-IM time so I am happy with that. The run is mostly determined by how well I manage my bike ride. I did a good job managing the nutrition and hydration so once I started running off the bike, I felt good the whole way and was able to negative split the course.

Final results, I came in 25th out of 36. At first glance, I was disappointed with this. I really wanted to make the list for worlds and they only take the top 20. At first I was not sure if I was disappointed by my place finish or with not making worlds. After 20 seconds of soul searching, I figured out that I could not be disappointed. I did my best. I know that I could not have ridden any harder or ran any better. I did everything just right so I cannot use those other factors to gauge my satisfaction with my race. Yeah, I know, at first, I did not buy it either but that is the reality.