I felt fine during the swim, it was definitely my strongest leg of the race. The time includes the run from the pier to the transition area, so I was actually a bit faster than indicated. Bilateral breathing kept me on course, and other than losing one of the buoys (it was sort of flopped over, tough to see) for a few seconds, I was right on with the sighting. Overall I think it was a much better swim than MiM last year, although I do need to be faster.

Nothing, I really think I did this swim to the best of my ability.

Ah, transition. The bane of my Memphis in May last year. I actually had my transition area set up for maximum speed this year, and it worked. I feel pretty good about these times.

Work on the bike mounting, but that will have to come after I get a new bike.

This bike course was just sadistic. Hilly pretty much the whole way through, and some of them were seriously sharp inclines. My poor commuter bike and my poor legs just weren't up to this. I went as hard as I could though, so I feel good about the ride overall.

As an aside, I added about .5 MPH to my speed since Memphis in May last year, so considering the difficulty of this course, I'm happy about that!

New Bike.
More time in the saddle.
Train more HILLS!

This was a fast transition for me, just racked the bike, dropped my helmet, took a quick swig of some Powerade and went. I was already wearing my running shoes and race number, so didn't have to worry about that.

Don't need to drink in Transition!

My Hamstrings and Glutes were fried from the bike. Ran the first mile at a decent clip, but then I had to jog/walk for a while to let them recover a bit. Commiserated with a couple of other competitors as we paced each other, then at mile 3 I took off again. Overall a pretty decent run considering the condition I was in.

Not much I could have done, the bike leg really killed my ability to run. Just need to run more, and maybe do the occasional trail run.

Took a Gatorade from the wonderful volunteers, wandered around and chatted with other racers.


Extremely sub-optimal bike. This is the last race for my Trek 7.2FX
Lack of open water experience in the swim.
Lack of serious hill training on the bike.
Lack of trail running experience on the run.



This was a good race, I'll be back next year.

It is worth noting that I had a few things I wanted to improve on from Memphis in May last year for this race:
Transitions: Check
Bike Pacing: Check
Swim Speed: No check
Running the whole Run: No check.
Nutrition Throughout: Check

I'm not worried about not running the whole run, since that was a result of the tough bike course destroying my legs. I've gotta start doing speed work in the water though, I've got the endurance, now to make it fast.
I'm really happy with my transitions, the fact that I pushed myself on the bike, and my nutrition/fluid intake during the race.

Overall, I'd call it a successful race for me!