I thought this was a very good swim, I started just a bit tentative for a few strokes and felt myself getting swallowed by the pack then stepped it up a notch but not too far so was able to hold the effort for quite some time. Swam side by side with another guy for awhile and kept an eye on Brandon, eventually dropped the guy next to me and was about even with Brandon's knees. At this point we were probably 200m in, say 2/3 of the way to the first turn and I felt great, no shoulder fatigue, not out of breath. Tried a couple times to drift over to Brandon and draft but our navigation didn't agree and I wasn't ready to give up another half body length just to draft so I just held my own along the buoy line.

Ran into lots of traffic around the first turn and lost sight of Brandon but managed to avoid any heavy contact with lots of sighting and maneuvering through the rest of the race, not ideal but better that taking a breastroke kick in the face again. The rest of the swim was also rather uneventful. I believe I was 2nd out of the water in my wave, 19s behind Brandon.

Switched to left side for breathing probably half a dozen times throughout for a few strokes both for situational awareness and to give the shoulders and neck a change.

No much, start with a little more confidence from the gun but the result was solid. I'm sure I could also work on maintaining form in the 2nd half as my shoulders and arms get tired as that is where I lost ~20s in 400m.

21 OA/1 AG. Had trouble getting wetsuit over my heals. Actually had to get my fingers in there and pry the thing off, likely only a handful of seconds but the little things add up.

Pull harder or I might have to open up the foot holes a little bit

I knew within 1 minute it wasn't going to be a good ride. Hit the transition line right behind Kevin, who is a great rabbit to chase when he's in the long course and I'm in the sprint but he just rode away today and my glutes lit up whenever I tried to push the pace. I checked average power several minutes in and it was right where I feared (and expected given recent training or lack thereof), struggling to hold the low end of Oly distance power. Just tried to hold the effort right at the edge of threshold, slacked more than a few times.

Not my worst performance ever at this course, but also only 20s faster than my first year which was on a road bike with aero bars. Of course I trained a lot more back then.

Train. Keep focused to maintain intensity

22 OA/2 AG. No socks, not real fast though.

I should probably spend some time practicing a couple transitions and work on mentally rehearsing them, I bet there's 10 seconds of free time between T1 and T2.

It was an okay run, I've put a few pounds back on over the summer, which directly translates to slower running, and haven't been running as often as I should which also tends to make one slower, and heavier...As usual at this race there were a lot of duathletes on the course as well as guys from the earlier heat so it was real tough to tell where you were in the overall.

Looking at the results, I made up 1 spot in my age group/heat/overall on the run, from 13s down to 3s ahead (recognize the name but haven't met him), the only pass I made near the end I figured was a duathlete given the speed differential, but I guess it could have been 4th place if he blew up on the run as I was finishing pretty strong, weird. Maybe he started in the wrong heat, as I understand there was quite a bit of that going on and then we never would have passed each other. Thinking more about it, he must have started in another heat as only 1 guy passed me on the bike and I had passed him earlier so we didn't actually change places. Also, they started the short course heats 15 or 20 minutes early, so he might have been caught in the port-a-potties or something similar.

train

Drank some brews and BS'd


lack of training


Well run race, among the more costly of local races but they also had a lot more finish line food and drink than some of the more budget friendly races, and they had Iron Band. Guess I'll just have to make a point of getting the early bird pricing.