I seeded myself about 6th after talking to the guys around me about their expected finish times. One guy said he was going to finish in 3:20 and seeded himself 3rd. By the end of the first lap I was on the feet of the guy in front of me. The person who seeded himself 3rd was barely keeping a 1:40/100 pace and everyone got backed up. This was a tough hit for me since the swim is my opportunity to put some distance behind me going into the bike. This just about killed it.

Seed myself much higher and realize that people tend to overestimate. Looking at the finish times, I could have easily been 2nd or 3rd and knocked a minute off my overall time if I had seeded properly.

I got out of the water and noticed my watch hadn't started. It was the first time I used the multisport function for a pool swim and must have messed something up. I tried hitting lap a bunch of times to get it to catch up to T1, but I couldn't get it to work. I then decided to just change it to a bike setting for that leg.

Practice the multisport setting first....nothing new on race day. One day I'll learn that.

This was my first ride after the winter's bike focus. I wasn't sure how to pace and ended up going way too conservative. I'm still happy with how it turned out. I finished much higher in the field than I had in any previous race.

Go harder.

I had been practicing getting out of my shoes and jumping off the bike while still moving after every outdoor ride over the winter. This was the first time I tried it in a race and it went perfectly. It was cold and my hands were numb so it made it difficult to get my shoes on.

I got out of T1 and had to reset my watch again by saving the bike then putting it in run mode. So my watch didn't catch the first part of the run and didn't get GPS signal until almost a quarter mile in. I hadn't done any speedwork at all for four months leading up to the race. With the bike focus I only did very easy steady state running and had no idea how this was going to go. The last sprint I did I averaged right at 7:00 MM and that was quite an effort so I expected about the same. When I finally got signal I looked down at my watch and I was running a 6:30 pace even though I didn't feel like I was pushing that hard. Just in case, I backed off and slowed down. I got to mile 1 at about 6:45. I still didn't feel like I was pushing really hard so I picked it up a bit. I finished the second mile at 6:30. At this point I realized that somehow I had gained some speed on the run even without speed work and just went with it. I pushed the last mile and did it in around 6:15. I crossed the finish line and didn't really felt like I raced. Between the bike and the run I went much too conservative.

Go harder.

I felt fine crossing the finish line. Normally I have to catch my breath but since I went too easy I crossed the line and immediately walked over and picked up one of my kids and started chatting with my wife. Then I walked over and talked with some of the other finishers.


Not knowing how the winter training block I did would affect my race performance.


There were some last minute changes and the race was about 15 minutes late getting started. Overall not bad though. Traffic control was very good.