Overall, not a bad swim, but not great, first 300m was great, I was able to hang with the front pack howver after that they just kind of pulled away from me and I ended up by myself about 50m back. Unfortunatly when we rounded the second bouy to head back, sighting was difficult with all the splashing in front of me, and the fact that the sprint distance caps were the same orange as the bouys. So I made a decision to follow the pack, after about 150m I noticed they were really off course. I dont think it added to much to my swim, but Im sure it didn't help either. All in all, I just didn't feel like I got into a good flow.

Not much really I think I was sighting a bit too much which slowed me down quite a bit. I have to learn to swim a little straighter. Given that this was only my second mass OWS start I think I did pretty good.

I just got a new set of PI Tri Fly VI's and had planned to do the 'ol flying mount however I only got in about 15 minutes of practice the other day. My feet are pretty wide, and I was having a hard time sliding them into the shoe without the strap folding in. So at the last minute I changed and planned on putting them on in transition.

Not much. It went pretty smooth except for not hitting my lap button on my garmin 910 as I came out of the water.

So this is where the race got interesting, coming out of the park the first 4-5km is uphill. I was able to pass a bunch of people here, although I think most of them were part of the team race. I kept a good pace and didn't think I was working too hard, however my Garmin was only giving me total time and total distance and wouldn't change screens, so I had no Idea what my HR or pace was. I took in a gel at about the 10km and was felling pretty good.

Then I get passed........by a guy who I swim 2-3 times a week with and ride with every so often. He's done this race all 30 years its been going. They even put his face on the race shirt this year, lol. I know he's usually a little faster than me on the bike. I made the decision there that I was going to try and keep him in my sights as long as possible. Which I did, right to the very end. He finished maybe 20-30sec ahead of me. I took in another gel at about the 30km mark and finished up knowing I had pushed the bike pretty hard. I have never done 40k in less that 1h12m and I was hoping for around a 1h10m split. So 1:08:41 was dang fast for me, I really think saving 2 min on the bike is what cost me 4 min or more on the run.

Being my first Oly I wasn't sure how hard to pace the bike. Looking back on the ride I pretty much pushed it as hard as I did my sprint races. I'll know next time to take it a little easier to save myself for the run.

Only way it could have gone better is if I sprinted out of transition in my bare feet. But after Jeff's RR I thought better of it.

Nothing......nailed it.

I started out feeling OK but by about the 2nd km I knew it was going to be tough. Not having my pace or HR data on my watch I was going by what I thought was about a 5/km pace, whcih is my HM pace. I might of been going a little faster then this, however not quite sure as I was trying to judge the km markers with every 5 minutes on my watch. I passed a water station at about the 4.5km mark and thought about taking a gel that I had. I really felt I was runnning out of energy but for some reason I decided not to take it. As I passed transition I knew I was fading, When I got to thr 7k mark or so I had to stop and walk. I tried to limit it to about 30 seconds or so and then tried to run again. Not sure how many times I had to stop and walk but from what I can figure it was 7-8 because I figure it cost me about 4 minutes or more. I hit the last water station at 8km and took the gel I had, with some water. I started running again and then stopped to walk one more time. with about 1.5k to go I was able to get my legs moving again. Not sure if the gel did anything, or if it was just mental but it seemed to help as I was able to run out to the end.

Not walk so much, lol. I need to get in some more runs. I havn't done a run over 10k in quite a few weeks, Im sure this was really a limiter.

I mainly stood around feeling like I was about to pass out. I had some water, pretzles, and a few slices of watermelon. I put my name down for a free massage which was great as I'm feeling pretty good today.


Training, I need to run more. I need to concentrate a bit more during the swim and watch my form.


Overall I love this race. Its a great venue for a swim, the bike course is beautiful and the run is just as good. All the volunteers made this a great event.

Being that it was the provincial championship race for the Oly distance the compition was pretty stiff. There were some really fast people here. I'm almost starting to look like I belong. Cant wait for next year.

When I finally uploaded my Garmin data I figured out what happened. I didn't hit the lap button coming out of the water like I thought I did, so it recorded my whole ride as T1 and my whole run ended up being T2, lol. just another lesson learned.

Can't wait for my next race in 3 weeks!