The swim was cold but manageable. I didn't push hard and maintained a nice steady stroke. There was not much traffic in the water after the first 100 yards or so. After getting out of the water it I jogged and walked up the steps to the transition area. The Blue Seventy wetsuit was great and having lost around 15 pounds it fit like a glove.

Nothing. I could have pushed harder, but that was not my plan for this race.

The timing chips for this race were the big orange ones that didn't fit over my wetsuit well. I ended up sittin down to get my suit off.

I should have practiced a bit more the day before.

I hit the wrong button on my Garmin and didn't get to recording my bike ride until a couple of minutes into the race. I was planning on riding based on power and was shooting for 95% of FTP, and amazingly, my normalized power was dead on at 233 watts.. I fiddles with my 910XT yesterday and found that I could read it best if I had the face on the inside of my wrist. With the rolling terrain, I found the power was jumping around quite a bit, but not so much that I felt I got good information. I did have two close calls, the first being when I took a turn too fast and nearly went off the road on the high side. The second when I lost concentration for a bit and nearly went off the shoulder on the right.

The race was kind of strange as after the first few miles, I didn't see anyone at all from the Olympic race at all. With my new Project Rudy helmet, I couldn't look behind me and there was nobody in sight in front. I'm glad there were plenty of volunteers to make sure i stayed on course.

This race I pumped my tires only up to a bit over 100 psi. I found that gave me better handling and the bumps in the road did not hurt my neck. I think I will keep with lower pressure in the future.

My gearing was bad. I changed from my trainer wheel and did a lousy job of tuning the rear derailleur the night before. The chain was slipping on a regular basis. I found it hard to keep my power up on the downhills. It seemed that I could not pedal hard enough on the downhills to keep the power in the zone i wanted.

A tip I just read online was to calibrate the V2's prior to leaving transition for the swim. I did not do this and I did not get the first calibration done. A short way into the bike, I did do the 3 backpedals to do the on-ride calibration.

Riding to power was definitely different. It kept me from going too fast in the beginning and not forcing on the hills. Overall, I was not quite as fast as I wanted, but I did have my fastest bike split for this race and my legs were much fresher on the run.

One thing that was concerning was my right knee. I got at least four sharp pains in my knees during the ride. I think I'm going to get my bike fit refined next week. I'm hoping that this will help with my knees. I'm hoping getting my cleats adjusted.will help my knees. If not, I may be in for a short season.

1. Get my power meter calibrated prior to the run segment.
2. Make sure my derailleurs are properly aligned prior to the ride - probably not wait until the night before to get this done.

This was a good transition.

Nothing

This was the freshest I have ever felt for a run segment. At the very start, my left hamstring was VERY tight, but it loosened up after a couple 100 yards and I settled into a relaxed pace. I'm kind of glad I did not have HR data to mess with my head. I had pretty much negative splits except for the last mile that had a steep climb just prior to the finish. The trails have rocks and roots all over the place and I had to be careful with my miminus road shoes. The high point of the run was not hitting the normal "I'm never going to do another race again" that I have during races.

I felt strong throughout the run. I free-wheeled on the downhills and was worried that my knee was all of a sudden going to give me a stabbing pain, but that never happened. Since there were so few people in the race, I think I only saw only 2 people on the run.

I didn't push too hard but had a good run. I played this about right.

I really didn't have a warm-down.


Nothing.


This was my 6th time at this race. Although I just turned 58, I had my fastest bike and run splits for this event. The swim was quite a bit different from years past, or I would likely have had a PR.

The race this year had more volunteers and there were no issues with missing turns (like what happened back when I did this race in 2014.