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 Swim
Comments: Wow if I haden't done the training I had in the last month and a half this swim would have been a lot rougher. This was the most violent swim I have ever expeirenced. It was a royal rumble in the water until pretty much mid-way threw the swim. I had a guy grabbing my arm so I couldn't stroke, elbows and fists were flying everywhere. My normal swim doesn't have much kick but this swim I was kicking in self defence so people wouldn't come as close. Whenever I race I make it a point to use good sportsmanship but these guys really pissed me off. While rounding the first buoy someone grabbed me by the neck. I elbowed back and caught him pretty good. While rounding the buoy I noticed there was a guy from the wave ahead of me clinging to the backside of the buoy (so the buoy was blocking him from the kayak guy). The first thing I did once I got past the turn was stop and treaded water and yelled to him that he had a guy pulled up on the back side of the buoy. His reply, "DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB!!". Whatever and put my head down and kept swimming. By midway after the first turn things calmed down with the contact. The chop didn't bother me all that much swimming wise. Just kind oof slowed me down. Spent more time swimming up and down swells than going buoy to buoy. Once I rounded the last turn I just kept my head down and lenthened out my stroke. By this time i was pretty much out of the crowd and going with the current so it made for an easy last few hundred yards. Got to the stairs and the 100 pound middle school girl gave me her arm to pull me up. I kind of laughed and thanked her then grabbed on to the railing and headed for my bike. What would you do differently?: Nothing really. I swam this like I expected. Had I been a litle fater I think I could have swam out of the rough stuff for the first half of the swim.  Transition 1
Comments: I have really been working on my transitions as a way to pick up time from my lackluster swims. This was by far the biggest transition area as I had been in. Ran to my bike in the 3rd to the end row wetsuit off in no time. Glasses helmet racebelt, grabbed bike and took off. As I was running through the shoot I hear someone yell "SHOE SHOE". I look down and one of my cleats was bare. I spot it about five yards behind me. I try to work my way back there but more people with bikes keot coming out and I was fighting aginst the crowd. Just when I got to the shoe the velcro got stuck to someones shoe running by so he ran off with my shoe. It came off pretty close to me so I grabbed it and got out of there. Put on the one shoe clipped in and left. Once I got past the cobblestones I slid my foot into the other shoe that had behaved and stayed on the cleat. The bad thing was the insole in the shoe that had come loose and bunched up when I jammed my foot into it in a hurry so I had to deal with a little discomfort on the bike. What would you do differently?: Not have my shoe come loose but I was still 4th in my AG for T1.  Bike
Comments: My main thing I was keeping in my head this race was that I was going to keep a nice pace and not burn it because I have my first HIM in two weeks. I think I was able to do a good job in this. One of the things I was working on was my gearing and I think I was choosing my gears according to the inclines and wind appropriately. I just kept a nice steady pace. Pick up quite a few people and a few people passed me. The only thing that bothered me was that I kept coming up on people at the turns. As a general rule I don't pass in the turns. One because I consider it rude. Two because I think it is dangerous because you have no idea how wide the other person will take the turn. It seemed like I came up on a lot of people in turns so I had to slow down for the other person/turn then get back up to speed and pass them. While on the subject I was amazed how many people didn't give an "on your left", I think its both a saftey and common courtesy thing but what do I know. From the general attitude of racers here you could definetly tell a lot were from up North. But the bike went as planned. Nice and easy and keep a steady cadence. As far as nutrition I had 2 gels and left about an inch in my bottle of acceleraid. I took the first gel to get the salt water out of my mouth. Second gel because I had taped it to my bike just in case and I figured why not. No ill effects of either. What would you do differently?: Nothing. Transition 2
Comments: NOt a bad transition. The run all the way down to the other end was a little rough and seemed to take forever. I was very happy about the way I had come in. This was the first race I did the keeping the shoes on the bike thing. It worked very well coming in. The only thing was the cobblestones at the bike stop were a little slick and almost had an accident because the wheels were sliding when I hit the brakes. So i just hopped off and jogged right into transition. What would you do differently?: Nothing, I guess it was just the long run to my rack spot that put so much time on. 12 seconds between T1 and T2 and I had a wetsuit on.  Run
Comments: I had the normal rubber legs coming off the bike. After the first mile I felt alright. Pretty much the same thing as the bike as far as keeping it nice and steady. I wanted to pace at right around 10 minute miles and that was what happened. Started off alright just kept turning my legs over and tried to get into a rythem. The first mile was a little slow but by the second mile I was right where I wanted to be. Just kept turning over the feet till I got to the turnaround. After the turnaround started actually feeling pretty good. The only bad thing was that I could feel my shoe starting to rub around the top of it. Turned out it chewed up my foot pretty good and it didn't feel good to clean it out but that was the worst that happened so I'm okay with it. On the run I saw Rick going in. I passed Russ (gullah) but I didn't notice him (I don't know how with that hat he had on). On my way in I think I saw most of the girls and they all looked pretty strong. Then I saw Shannon (southernaquagoddess) and she yelled at me and waved the sign. I think right before shannon there was a water station. I was feeling a little hot and wanted some cool water. I passed the guy and he had a Zephyrhills cup and said water. I grabbed it and poured it over my head. GATORAID!! I was immidiatly sticky and I really didn't want to turn around and run back to the station so I just lived with it and knew that there wouldn't be another station because I was near the end. I thought I was nearing the finish and some guy says this is the last turn. So I wanted to give it my all coming in so I start really picking up the pace. I was bombing in and when I turn the corner I see the race course stretching out another 5 blocks. DOH!. I slow back down and try to get my heart rate back to managable pace. I run the five block and then find the REAL last turn. I start lenthing my stride and pumping the legs and come around the corner in a full sprint. It was awesome , the people were clapping and I heard them start yelling and cheering when I came in sprinting. It was such an awesome feeling the crowd was great. This was the first race I have done that had a good number of people there spectating. I kind of wished that I had gone though slower so I could have enjoyed it more. What would you do differently?: Maybe carry some spare socks in case my shoes start to rub. I think this may be the thing to do since I plan to race without socks this year. Just throw them in my pocket before I get on the bike should I feel anything that needs immediate attention. Post race
Warm down: They were handing out water at the finish line. They had the water in a trashcan filled with ice water. As soon as I crossed the finish line I grabbed ahold of one of these and stuck my head down as far as I could. It felt awesome. I then wandered around for a few minutes till my dad found me and we talked a while. Stmbled onto the BT area and grabbed a beer. Waited around then snuck into the line into the transition area with Russ (gullah). Got my gear and threw it in the truck. Came back got a massage. Found Renee at the BT veranda and went to both Publixes to get the food. Came back and ended up staying till like 8:00 with everybody. Eating and drinking and laughing. It was a really really good time. I could not stop laughing. What limited your ability to perform faster: I wanted to finish right around 3:00 and thats what I did so I was happy about it. I knew I had my first HIM in two weeks. I thought it wasn't bad for my first Oly and 3rd race overall. I may be a Clydesdale but HARDWARE top ten in my group. Event comments: This was an awesome race from Friday till SUnday night. I had a blasty blast. Last updated: 2005-11-16 12:00 AM
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United States
80sF / 0C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 1930/
Age Group = 20-29 clydes
Age Group Rank = 9/
Friday afternoon I was able to sneak away from one of my job sites that happens to be in St. Pete. So I had a change of clothes and at 2:00 I changed into my shorts and Tri T and took off. Got down into Downtown St. Pete and started walking around the expo. I needed to get some gels and a neoprene seat cover. I needed the seat cover because on thursday I pulled an Americas funniest home videos when my chain slipped and my foot came uncleated and the tube meet my seat very hard and left it sore. Anyway found the stuff I needed, then said hi to coach matt (Tri3racing) then checked in and took off to get back to work for a 5:30 meeting. At said 5:30 meeting I was informed that I had to do a ton of work if I still wanted to have off saturday and sunday. So I sat at the office most of Friday night and got it all worked out. Unfortunatly that means I had to miss Friday BT events. Saturday I bolted out of bed at 5:30 for no apparent reason. I figured since I was up I might as well be usefull. So I cleaned and lubed my bike before I took it to check in. Made a huge breakfast then packed up the truck and left for st. pete for the practise swim. Got in the water splashed around a bit and practised my dolphining and running out swam a little. Then went to a USAT focus group for an hour and told them what I would liked changed stay the same with USAT. Basically I did it to get free swag. Then hung around the expo for another hour before I had to go hceck in my bike. Ran in to Gullahcracker and renee and went to check the bikes in. Then said goodbye and drove back to tampa to watch the draft with some buddies. Then back across the bridge at 5:00 for BT dinner. Dish was good, met more people there and all people were talking about was the wind and the water. Then had some ice cream and went home. Made my checklist, packed my bag and hit the rack. Couldn't fall asleep till about 11:30. Woke up at 5:00. Took a quick wake up shower, threw on my trisuit, grabbed some cliff bars and some water and took off. Parked and started walking to the race when sue and wendi saw me. We walked to body marking saw rick and carl and got marked. Went inside set up transition and pumped my tires then started walking to the swim start.
At the swim start ran into some lisa, renee, wendi, jessica, christine, probably more sorry if I left you out. Just stood there and waited for my start. Felt the urge so I went into the bay and peed in my wetsuit then headed for my corral. Felt a little nervous before the start. Then over the loud speaker the music started playing "Haddaway- What is Love" (song from Night at the Roxbury). I started dying laughing and doing the head bob and "you me, me you me you" The whole wave started cracking up and most people around were doing the head bob. The horn sounded and things stopped being so funny.