The swim was great. My first wetsuit swim in competition. The water was a little cold, but the locals said it was really fairly warm. I had a great first half and made a perfect turn around the bouy but then got pushed much further to the right than I expected on the way back, so I wasted some time and energy trying to get back on track. All in all, the swim was great - I've had lake swims which were rougher than this swim.

I need to do something different when I get into a current. For some reason, I wind up trying to take the current head-on and that throws me off course.

T1 required making some decisions. Wasn't completely sure if I wanted to put on a jacket (it was pretty cool) or not. That kind of made my transition area a little messy. I also took a couple of minutes to give another guy a spare tube since he had already flatted.

T1 at this race had you run up the beach from the water about 150 yards, then run down the street a half block and into the transition area. On the way out, there were rail road tracks that made any kind of jumping on the bike almost impossible.

Run faster! Know ahead of time what to do with the wet suit.

The hills were brutal, not to mention the headwind. It took me 1:52:55 to get out to the turn around and 1:27 coming back. Between the wind and the hills and the traffic, I was a bit overwhelmed.

I would practice more hills. If it had been just hills, I probably would have been okay. If it had been just wind, I probably would have been okay. The combination really wore me out. Need to add some weights to my off-season training to get the leg strength up.

T2 was pretty good. I changed socks, which I probably didn't have to do, but thought it would be best. The sun was coming out and it was warming up, so I wanted to give my feet every chance to be dry for as long as possible.

Not much. Organize my bike gear better as I am taking things off - that probably cost me the most time. And I stopped to pee - guess I could have done that on the bike or the run, but I'm not that competitive.

Felt pretty good, except for some neuroma. Feet were pretty sore and had some ITB going on in my right knee. I could have gone faster and finished sooner, but I wound up talking to a guy that was running slow, so I stayed with him - again, not really all that competitive. After a while, he slowed even more, so I pressed on and caught up with a couple of other folks I knew and then ran on in with them until we got to about a mile or so from the beach. I pushed harder to finish the last mile than they did.

Get the neuroma in my foot taken care of. Maybe take a couple of advil in T2. I'd probably go ahead and push harder the entire way and not be quite as sociable - though having someone to commiserate with did help.

Quick stretching.
Cold Coors Light.
Burrito.
Accelerade about 45 min after the race.
Shower.
Massage.


I don't sleep well the night before an event. I didn't sleep very well on the 11th before this race.

I went to the half-ironman distance too soon. I just started doing tris from a completely sedentary state about 15 months ago. I think my entire training time was laying down a base, not really building any power or muscular endurance. I should have done a shorter race for my A-race this year and saved the half for next year.


Race was good and well done. I really enjoyed it and would do it again. The weather was certainly agreeable - much cooler than anything we have in Texas this time of year. It was only their 3rd year of doing the race, so I expect it to continue to get better.