Stonebridge Ranch - TriathlonOlympic

Started right behind Brian from the tri club who is an incredible swimmer. I wanted to stay on his feet as long as possible. Held on to him for about 3 strokes I think. Then he was gone. Pretty impressive considering right before we started he decided his goggles were too foggy to see through, so he threw them away.

Not a bad swim. Not as fast as I would swim it in a pool, but for open water, I'll take it. Regretted my choice of goggles. I had grabbed my clear ones instead of the tinted ones. I should know better than that. Luckily I caught a good draft on the way into the sun on lap one and then in lap two I had someone to my side that was going the same pace, so I just stayed right by them and let them sight for me.

Tinted goggles.

Ask permission before I accidentally grabbed a chick's boob when I passed.

Wetsuit strippers! Yeah! They got my suit off lickity split and I was gone. Passed a couple of folks running up the hill. Could hear several folks hollering my name. Good to be part of a tri club.

Downhill I sprinted and passed a few more people. I hate that downhill.

Not sure how helpful shoes on the bike would be on this course since you have the hill right at the start.

Got up to speed pretty quickly and was halfway up YMCA hill when I hear a familiar voice cussing me out on my left. I glance over and it's Drew. I swim with him in Masters. He had made up the gap between our start times and was now passing me. I knew I'd never hear the end of it if he, out of shape as he claims, were to beat me. So I let him get 5 bike lengths in front of me and then sprinted past him. About a minute later he does the same to me. Hmm...this has potential.

We spent all four laps doing this off and on. Sometimes I would hold him off for a few minutes, then he we sprint ahead and drop me for a few minutes. All the while we are passing people like crazy.

Had cheering all over the course. Could hear Brig yelling at me each lap on Virginia, and Brian was standing at the top of YMCA hill cheering for me. That rocked.

Only got passed once on the ride (not counting Drew) and it was Aaron. I want to be that fast. That would rock.

I finally dropped Drew on the last turn, and I heard John say something about the race wheels he let me borrow.

Nothing. I went all out for the whole course and hit a new PR for bike pace. And it was in an Oly, not a sprint. Cool.

I decided to try to get out of my shoes come down the hill on Virginia before the turn back in to transition. Had practiced it a little and figured it was worth a try. It was an easy downhill finish so I didn't lose too much speed. Turned back into the beach club and got my right leg over my tube. So far so good. Coast, coast, step, line. Boom. Saw Yolanda there cheering and yelled at her. "Yay, I didn't crash!"

Missed my bike rack and and to backtrack 3 racks. Moron. Drew passed me in transition and laughed at me. Once I got back to my rack I had trouble getting it on the bar, and then I had trouble getting my socks on.

Know where my rack is better.

Not much I can do about the socks. Just slow down and relax a bit. I'm not about to try to do a sockless 10K.

My legs were cooked from the start. Having an uphill first mile sure didn't help. I think I had too much nutrition on the bike or something. My stomach was not happy. Decided against the gel I had on me. The thought of anything else besides water made me want to puke.

Passed Drew about 50 yards out of transition and good gamed him. Ran right past Iron Dave who yelled some encouragement. Then I ran past our frat tent where everyone was going crazy. I knew Brian was up there somewhere in front of me. My goal was to catch him. It was going to hurt, but I didn't care.

Looked down at my watch after the first mile marker and something wasn't right. Apparently I had forgotten to hit the lap button entering or leaving transition, so I was still registering my time for T2. Oh well, not going to muck with it now. Just keep going and keep catching people.

Stomach just shut down on me right at mile 2. It was bad. Didn't help that it was just getting hotter each step. Feet were burning, sweat was everywhere, but I kept going. Got some water at the aid station and that seemed to help. Another tunnel and then onto Virginia. Ug. That stretch just seems to be longer and longer each time I do this race.

Finally I spotted Brian up ahead. I figured he was about a minute up on me. I could read his body language and he was hurting a lot more than I was. That was scary knowing how badly I was feeling. Then I spotted the flag up ahead. More motivation. Finally hit the turnaround mat. Halfway home. Legs were screaming, stomach was still churning, and I was burping like nobody's business.

Caught Brian and Aaron on the downhill stretch of Virginia, then started meeting lots of my teammates. The uphill at the Virginia tunnel hurt. Bad. Got passed by a relayer. Tried to stay with him but got dropped. More water at the aid station settle my stomach down a bit. But my legs were completely dead.

Tried to up my pace the last two miles but there was just nothing there. Continued taking in water at each aid station. The heat was just killing me. I spotted a guy the last mile that had a 33 on his calf. Hey, catch him, he's in your AG. Caught him right after the next to last uphill and sprinted for 15 seconds to drop him. Turns out he was in the open wave, but I didn't know or care.

Shambled up the hill after the last tunnel and was just hating life. I kept imagining someone right behind me to keep me from walking. The downhill finishing stretch behind the YMCA felt like paradise. I still had nothing in my legs, or the rest of me for that matter. I actually asked some of the volunteers if there was anybody behind me. They said no. Whew. I shut it down and cruised in to the finish. Ran right past our tent and got a heroes' welcome.

My time was way slower than what I can do for a 10K, but looking at the overall times, it was just not a good day for anybody. Just plain oppressive out there.

Crossed the mat and got my chip off and got a bottle of water. Then I just kind of stood there for a minute. My mind was not working right. Luckily Brigid and Sarah ran up to me and had a plate of oranges and bananas for me. They helped me walk over to our tent and made me eat and drink. Stacey came up with a not quite frozen popsicle. That was the best. Finally started to lose the brain fog after about 20 minutes. I've never felt like that after a race. I couldn't really speak in complete thoughts. Everything was just fragmented. Really weird.

After Sean and Shannon had gone out on the run course I moseyed down to transition and packed everything up and brought it back to our tent. Checked out the results and was happily surprised. Drezek had registered in the Collegiate division. Never heard of that division before, but I didn't care. So not only did they have the Open wave, but now a Collegiate wave. In reality I was 6th in my AG and 26th overall, but thanks to the divisional breakdown I was 1st and 5th. Sweet.


Can't complain about the swim or bike. For the run it was my stomach and the heat. Probably related.


3rd year for me to do this one and it didn't let me down. Wasn't a big fan of the Olympic wave starting 2nd since we got to be out in the heat more, but with the Sprint being the SMW State Championship, I can handle it.