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 Swim
Comments: I decided at the last minute not to wear the wetsuit. Between the water temp and the short swim course and the debacle of my last swim leg in a tri I wanted to prove to myself I could do this without a wetsuit. I expected my swim split to suffer, but the time was less important than doing it well. It was fine. I stopped once briefly to site the shore after rounding the bouy, but only because the pack I was in had people headed in different directions. I'm totally happy with this. It's slow for anyone else, but for me in open water without a wetsuit it's really good. The washing machine wasn't bad. I started in the back but shouldn't have. I passed a good number of guys. Should've known by all the first timers in the wave. The wind was into shore and pretty strong and the waves were kind of high, maybe 9 inches to a foot. A number of people afterward talked about the amount of water they swallowed going out. I didn't have a problem with it. What would you do differently?: Not much, I'm happy with it. There were lots of bikes in T1 when I got there this time. :) I have to become a better swimmer, but for the Florida half IM in May I know I can do an OW swim without a wetsuit. This one goes in the win column. Once this season is over, time invested in becoming a better swimmer will be very worthwhile. Would the wetsuit have saved me time? Maybe. The time taking it off would probably have been a less than the time gained and it probably would have been easier to do the long wade with more bouyant legs, but the mental boost was worth any time penalty. Put my goggles on correctly. Thankfully Jeremy noticed I had them on upside down before the start.  Transition 1
Comments: Due to the shallow water in the lake, the 100yd wade in knee high water took a lot out of me for this. I was efficient enough in this transition, but once again had problems mounting the bike. I swung my right leg over, put my left foot on the pedal, tried to swing my right leg over and the left foot slipped off the pedal. Argh. What would you do differently?: Learn to mount my bike in race conditions.  Bike
Comments: Got passed in the first few miles by some really fast people with discs and aero wheels and such in the first few miles, but that's it. Passed a lot of people too. Mostly road bikes with no aero bars. Aero bars make you faster kids. Only saw one knucklehead drafting and blocking, he was doing both at the same time and ended up with a train behind him. Other than that it was a very civil, sporting group out on the bike. There was one section after the end of the first long climb where I got to stay above 30 mph for about a mile. That was fun. What would you do differently?: Not much. Train more, build a better base, but I'm ok with this bike. Transition 2
Comments: Almost injured myself and a volunteer here. The return to transition from the bike course included a few 90 turns and a trip over grass, so I decided not to take my feet out of my shoes before dismounting. I timed unclipping and slowing down ok, swung my left leg over the rear wheel and just as I was going to step off, my right shoe clipped back in. So I was rolling while clipped into one pedal with my opposite leg over the rear tire. Headed straight at a volunteer. I remember saying "My foot clipped in again" or something to that effect and hearing the people in the area kind of gasp. The volunteer was *awesome*. She grabbed my shoulders, slowed me down and balanced me while I unclipped my right foot. (I returned after finishing to thank her.) Forgot to put on my number belt. Transition area was a mess. I guess I was a little shaken up from the near crash and also rely too much on visual cues in this transition. What would you do differently?: 1 - Learn to dismount 2 - Put on my number belt.  Run
Comments: I just didn't have a strong run in me today. I was mentally prepared to suffer for a while, but my legs just wouldn't turn over at the rate I wanted. My HR was what I planned on putting in, I just thought I'd get a faster result. Tried to sprint at the end, but it just wasn't there. Did I push too hard on the bike? Maybe. Post race
Warm down: Walked around What limited your ability to perform faster: Humidity Event comments: FOMOP in my AG! Best showing so far. 5 seconds faster and I would have been BOFOP. Had a great time. I ran into Hugh (Beez89), but didn't meet any other BT'ers despite wearing my BT shirt. Really enjoyed hanging with Jeremy, Glen and their nephew Jamie. A fun, really well run race. Gotta like an RD who wades into the water with the athletes bullhorn in hand to start the race. Next year, it's the Half IM distance. Last updated: 2005-03-06 12:00 AM
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United States
75F / 24C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 66/294
Age Group = M40-44
Age Group Rank = 9/29
Up at 5:00, dressed, ate a banana, clif bar. Drove to the race (1 hr). Forgot my Gatorade in the fridge. Got a coffee on the way. Got pulled over by a local cop for doing 50 in a 35. I was riding exactly with traffic, but whatever. He was nice enough, professional, only wrote me a ticket for not having an insurance card in the vehicle which I can apparently get out of by showing proof of insurance. Got to the race, set up transition. This was interesting. There wasn't much room left on the rack I was assigned. Found a spot, but the person next to me had set up their transition area next to their bike, effectively taking up 2 spots. I moved their stuff over a bit to make room expecting some sort of confrontation over it. When the owner showed up, she was very nice, and asked if I needed more room etc. The lesson here is don't judge someone by how they set up their transition area.
Swam a bit while waiting for our wave to start.