The Southern Hills Triathlon

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The Southern Hills Triathlon

Each year, The Southern Hills Triathlon takes place on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend. Join us

Stay tuned as we develop and upload the race information which will be coming soon...... Thank you!

09/04/2026

REMINDER

Packet pick up ends today at the Black Hills Running Company at 2pm.

Race packets will be available at Breakers Beach, Angostura Reservoir this evening from 5:30-6:30pm and Saturday morning before the races begin. Safety meeting starts at 7 am so please be early.

It's going to be a great weekend! See you soon!

09/03/2026

Race Week
Well, the time is now! We hope training has gone well, and now you are ready to take on the Southern Hills Triathlon in South Dakota.

Packet pick-up starts this week:

Thursday: Black Hills Running Company 9:30-5:30 pm, 1130 W. Omaha, Rapid City, SD 57701

Friday: Black Hills Running Company 9:30-2pm and Breakers Beach 5:30-7pm, 28075 Recreation Rd. Hot Springs, SD 57747.

* Saturday morning, you will need to pick up your timing chip found in the transition area.

Saturday, September 5th, 2026- Race Day!

Check out link in the profile or check your email for more information (look in spam 😉)

08/31/2026

Race week.

Southern Hills Triathlon is Saturday. Five days away.

The training is done. All of it lives in your body already. Every swim, every long ride, every brick, every early morning you didn't want to show up but did.

The remaining work this week is small on purpose. Short easy sessions, one or two openers, packing the bag, a last bike check, and more sleep than usual.

The instinct at five days out is to squeeze in one more workout that proves the fitness is real. Let that instinct pass without acting on it. The fitness is real, and any extra effort added between now and Saturday morning is a withdrawal from what you'll have at the start line.

Race week is calm on purpose. Confidence gets built in the training weeks. This week is where the body finishes absorbing what the five-month block built, and mental rehearsal happens on those short easy runs.

Show up to Breakers Beach on Saturday with a rested body, a familiar plan, and grilled cheese waiting at the finish line.

We'll see you at Angostura.

What's the one thing you're doing this week to arrive at Breakers Beach rested and ready? Tell us in the comments.

08/27/2026

Nine days out from September 5. Race week starts this Sunday, August 30.

Race week is the shortest and easiest training week of the entire cycle. It's also easy to overthink. The last seven days for an Olympic-distance triathlete tapering into race day usually look something like this.

Nine days out: today. Last chance for any real workout. A short brick with race-pace segments is a common option. Keep it to what the plan calls for and nothing beyond that.

Seven to five days out: keep training frequency, drop volume more. Short easy sessions in each discipline. Skip anything that leaves you sore or tired.

Four to three days out: openers. Short race-pace efforts in each discipline. The point is to prime the nervous system, not to build fitness. Two to three minutes of race-pace work is enough.

Two days out: light shakeout. A 20 to 30 minute easy spin, a short swim, or a short jog to keep the body loose. No harder than an easy warmup.

The day before September 5: gear check, packet pickup at Breakers Beach transition area, an easy walk, hydration, and the pre-race dinner you've trained with. Heads up for returning racers: packet pickup is at the transition area this year, not the Masonic Lodge. Lights out early.

Race morning: familiar breakfast at least two hours before start. Arrive early enough to set up transition without rushing. Warmup in the water for a few minutes before the horn.

By race week, fitness is already banked. The last seven days protect it and rehearse mental readiness.

The Southern Hills Triathlon at Angostura is September 5. If you've been on the fence about racing this year, message/DM us for the link today. Nine days out is still enough runway to prep the bag and rest, but the closer to Saturday, the tighter the window gets.

08/24/2026

Two weeks out from September 5.

The fitness and the plan are both in place. The last two weeks are about how well you execute the taper.

The training block gets the obsession, and the taper gets treated like a rest period. When that happens, fitness gets left in the log instead of arriving at the start line. The taper is the last training block. Show up for it like you did the peak weeks.

What ex*****on looks like in the last two weeks:

Sleep gets prioritized like a workout. Eight or nine hours if you can find them. Deep repair from months of training load happens when the body is asleep in the taper.

Meals stay consistent. Skip experimental foods, new supplements, or aggressive nutrition changes in the last 14 days. The body wants familiar fuel.

Easy sessions stay easy. If the plan calls for an easy swim, keep the swim easy. Adding effort to an easy session to feel sharper is one of the fastest ways to arrive at the start line tired.

Mental rehearsal starts. Walk through race morning in detail. Putting on the wetsuit, entering the water, exiting into T1, mounting the bike, the first mile of the run. Rehearse each transition step by step. The nervous system responds to vivid mental rehearsal almost the same way it responds to physical practice.

You've done the training, and the last two weeks are where you protect it.

Where are you making the taper work for you right now? Tell us in the comments.

08/20/2026

Three weeks out. Your race-day gear check happens now, not race morning.

A cracked helmet strap found on race morning is a much bigger problem than one caught with two weeks to fix it. The gear check now matters.

Race-day gear checklist for Angostura:

Bike. Full drivetrain check. Chain and cassette wear. Brake pads. Tire tread and sidewall condition. Cables and shifting. If you use a bike shop for tune-ups, book yours in the next week. Shops fill up in the final two weeks before a race.

Wetsuit. Zipper works cleanly. No tears at the crotch or armpits. L**e for chafing if you use it. If you're borrowing or renting, confirm the loan for race weekend now.

Helmet. No cracks or dents. Straps in good condition. If you crashed at any point this season, replace the helmet even if it looks fine. Foam absorbs impact once.

Shoes. Bike shoe cleats tight, no play. Run shoes with enough tread and cushion for another 10K plus the race. Break in new shoes before the last two weeks. Race day is not the day to test new shoes.

Nutrition. Race-day gels, drink mix, salt tabs, or whatever you've trained with. Confirmed and stocked. Pre-race breakfast items purchased and tested one more time in a long workout.

Packing list. Start a written packing list now. Wetsuit, cap, goggles, timing chip strap, tri-suit, socks, bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses, race number belt, gels, water bottles, run shoes, hat, sunscreen, towel, transition mat, spare tube, pump. The list gets refined over the next three weeks.

The Southern Hills Triathlon at Angostura is September 5. Under three weeks out.

If you haven't registered, message/DM us for the link this week. Bike shop bookings for pre-race tune-ups fill up two weeks out, and t-shirt sizing gets harder to guarantee the further into August we get.

08/17/2026

Three weeks out from September 5.

If you're in the first full taper week and your legs feel worse instead of better, you're right on schedule.

The taper does something counterintuitive in the first two weeks. When volume suddenly drops, it breaks the routine your body has been running for months, and the nervous system doesn't know what to do with the extra recovery. Legs get heavier before they get fresher, and workouts you thought would feel great feel like sludge instead.

This is normal. It's called taper flatness. It shows up in the taper for almost everyone, and it messes with your head while it's happening.

The temptation at three weeks out is to reach for a workout that proves the fitness is still there. A tempo run to feel sharp, or a harder bike interval than the plan calls for. Anything to make the flatness go away.

Skip it. The flatness is the taper doing its work. The fitness is still there, and it surfaces in the final ten days as the body finishes absorbing the last five months of training. The way the legs feel this week is not a preview of how they'll feel on September 5.

Hold the taper as written. Get extra sleep and trust the log.

What's the workout this week that feels flat but you're going to do anyway? Tell us in the comments.

08/13/2026

Four weeks out from Angostura. Your last open water sessions before September 5 are the ones that matter most.

The Breakers Beach swim start is open water. No black line on the bottom, weeds in the shallows, and other swimmers around you at the start. Every triathlete racing at Angostura benefits from at least two more full open water sessions between now and race week.

What to work on in your last open water sessions:

Full race distance in the wetsuit. Do the whole swim distance you're racing on September 5 in one continuous set, in the wetsuit you'll wear on race day, in water that mimics Angostura conditions. Confirms the wetsuit fits, the pacing feels manageable, and the distance is well within your comfort zone.

Sighting in real conditions. Practice the sighting rhythm you drilled in July, every six to ten strokes, in actual lake water with real sun glare. Sighting on a bright morning at Angostura is different from sighting in a controlled pool.

Group starts if you can. Solo pace already gets plenty of practice in training, but the chaos of the first 100 meters rarely does. If you can swim with a group of two or three others starting at the same time, do at least one session that way. Learn to sight, breathe, and find rhythm when there are arms and legs near you.

Cold-water body check. If you tend to hyperventilate on cold water entry, one or two cold-water sessions now help the body remember how to handle it.

The Southern Hills Triathlon at Angostura is September 5. Swim start at Breakers Beach. Three weeks and change to race day.

If you're still deciding, message/DM us for the link today. Three weeks out is when travel to Hot Springs and race-weekend logistics still fit easily on the calendar.

08/10/2026

Four weeks out from September 5.

The instinct at four weeks is to catch up. There's a soft week from July on the training log, a long swim that never quite hit the distance you wanted, and a Sunday brick that got shortened three times in a row. Somewhere in the back of your mind, the plan is to make it up in the last month.

Triathlon fitness doesn't work that way. Endurance capacity is built through months of consistent aerobic work. The last four weeks are for absorbing and sharpening what's already there. Cramming volume in the taper window is a fast way to arrive at the start line tired instead of sharp.

The fitness bank for September 5 is closed, and whatever's in there is what you race with.

The upside: what's in there is probably more than you think. Look back at the workouts you finished over the last 20 weeks. The swims, the rides, the runs, the bricks. Add the hours up. The taper is where the fatigue clears and that base of fitness surfaces.

Then redirect the catch-up instinct into recovery. The last four weeks are for sleep, hydration, easy sessions, and mental rehearsal.

Where's your training log strongest right now? Look back over the last four weeks and tell us in the comments.

08/06/2026

The taper is the block where instinct fights the plan hardest. The fitness feels close, so an extra hard week sounds like the shortcut to sharp legs on race day. It rarely is, and trusting the plan through the doubt is the last real piece of training work before September 5.

A well-executed taper in the last four to five weeks before September 5 looks something like this.

Volume comes down. Most Olympic-distance taper protocols cut weekly volume progressively. The taper starts two to three weeks out and reduces volume each week while keeping some intensity work. Race week is the lightest, often 40 to 60% of peak volume. Arriving rested is the goal, not fit-plus-tired.

Intensity holds. Race-pace intervals continue in shorter blocks, once or twice a week per discipline. Keeps the nervous system sharp for race effort. Skipping this in favor of pure rest is what leaves taper legs feeling like sludge on race day.

Frequency stays. Keep swimming, biking, and running on the same days you've been training. Dropping a discipline for two weeks loses feel more than it saves recovery.

Recovery investment goes up. Sleep is the biggest lever in the taper, and nutrition holds steady. Nothing new in the last four weeks. Save any untested supplement, workout format, or piece of gear for after September 5.

Trust the training bank. The fitness you've already built is bigger than any workout you're tempted to add in the final month.

The Southern Hills Triathlon at Angostura is September 5. Olympic, Sprint, Super Sprint, Relay, and Youth distances. One month out from race day.

If registration has been sitting on your list, message/DM us for the link. One month out is enough runway to get a race t-shirt in your size and lock in travel and gear plans for Angostura.

Address

28075 Recreation Road
Hot Springs, SD
57747

Website

https://jazzhandsrunning.com/

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