This race did NOT go to plan....not even a little bit. I committed to doing a winter run focus in hopes of improving my running so I could stop dropping massive places at the end of HIM's. I dropped all the biking and swimming since just before Thanksgiving to give my running the best chance for improvement. It just was not to be. I really need to figure out what I'm doing that's sabotaging my improvement because something clearly is not working.

Plan was to start out the first couple miles around an 8:30 pace because I learned the hard way that going out too fast at the start results in a frustrating and painful finish. I was confident that I could go sub-1:52 (since that's what my HM PR from October was) and felt that I had a good shot at going sub-1:50. So I wanted to start right around 8:30 and work my way down into the 8:20's, and hopefully finish a bit stronger in the last 5k.

The first four miles were pretty much right where I wanted to be (8:32, 8:24, 8:32, 8:34), but they certainly weren't feeling effortless. I tried to pick up the effort and next thing you know, I have two miles at 8:4X and two miles at 8:5X....and then nothing sub-9 after. What's going on? Why won't my legs turn over? Maybe I should have gone out too hard because the pace drop-off was inevitable...

Weather was perfect (can't blame my sub-par run on that), I actually tapered for the race (reduced volume, but kept some intensity), and I came in feeling prepared and confident. I'm realizing that the "conventional" running wisdom just isn't giving me the training stimulus I need, so I need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what to change.

I'm really disappointed that my run focus doesn't appear to have resulted in any progress (at least not in the forward direction...) and that I neglected my bike and swim for nothing. That said, maybe it "just wasn't my day"....a day later, I'm really not very sore at all, so it's apparent that I wasn't running to any true fitness-limitation. I just need to figure out what to change to set me up for improvement and actually "showing up" on race day as it appears to be something I struggle with for stand-alone run races.

1.2 mile swim / 56 mile bike warm-up??

Walked for a couple minutes and then stretched before letting my muscles cool down too much. Grabbed a bottle of water and banana almost immediately, then changed into some dry clothes before finding some more food and chocolate milk


Not entirely sure....maybe I just stink at running. Maybe I've plateaued and need to change the run stimulus to see improvement. Maybe I'm in my head too much and sabotage myself with too high of expectations on race day. I don't know, but whatever it is -- it's really stealing the joy out of my racing, so I need to figure it out.


Pretty cool to run in such a huge race. It draws a nice elite/pro group as well, which is kinda cool. Everything was on time and organized. It does feel a little impersonal with it being such a big event, but that's not really a big deal to me.