How much to lie?: Cool Breeze Triathlon race preview

This Sunday will be my first triathlon of the year, a sprint triathlon with a very short (250 yard) pool swim, which is right up my ally:  limiting the time I lose swimming.  I feel really good after my week an easy week/vacation, we’ll see what that means for the race.  I went swimming yesterday and made sure my goggles weren’t going to leak, I was also able to practice doing turns underneath the lane line (which I’ll have to do for the race).  Today I’ll get everything set up for my bike, it’d be better if it was already done, but that’s one of the consequences of going to Cancun (which I’m totally ok with, and many times I’d be getting my bike set up after working, which I won’t have to do today).  Overall I feel really good going into the race.

One of the things that’s different about pool swims is that you have to put in a projected time for your swimming, and then you leave in order of fastest swimmer to slower.  Ideally if everyone is seeded properly no one has to pas anyone in the pool, and it runs very smoothly.  Reality is a little different:  people put in times that are much faster than what they will be able to swim, and as a result you have to pass people in the pool (which is difficult, and slows you down).  In the past I’ve tried to put in accurate or slightly optimist times for my swim, and while I never swam as fast as my seed time, everyone was further off in the times they submitted and as a result I’ve had to deal with slow swimmers in the pool and then had to deal with congestion on the bike course.  This year I said screw it, I’m going to try and put in a time that will seed me correctly regardless of what I will actually swim.  I put in a time of 77 seconds per 100 yards, which is something I can do easily for 100 yards, but not 250, and if I swim that fast I will have one of the fastest swims in the race.  But it turns out I put in a very appropriated swim time and my bib number is 54, which means I’ll be the 54^th racer to start which is about where I should be and mean that I won’t have to worry to much about passing (or being passed on the swim) and I won’t be stuck in the middle of the pack on the bike and have to pass tons of people.  We’ll see how this all works out tomorrow.