I started right next to my friend who had the fastest swim time of the day and tried to draft off of him, but lost him about 150m in. Didn't feel bad, but pretty sure it wasn't my best swim of the year. Wasn't wiped out from it, but just felt inefficient.

Since I do pretty well in the swim without a lot of work, I don't focus on it. For next season, I would like to prioritize swimming a bit more. It may not gain me *that* much, but in a race like this, every second counted.

Messed up with my watch coming out of T1, which caused me to look down at it. I swerved into oncoming traffic and nearly caused an accident which was 100% my fault. Felt horrible about this. Also pulled my right shoe out of the speedplay pedal, and was lucky not to totally drop it.

T1 was great (fastest in my AG) right until I got on to the bike. That's when it fell apart.

Practice transitions again. Not worry about watch if I screw something up.

My watch was in T2 mode for nearly the entire group because of my screwup. I didn't want to mess with my cyclocomputer, so I only knew my overall average. I was completely out of sync for the first 5 miles based on my near accident, and couldn't mentally get over it. I finally started pushing it out and feeling good, but somehow right after the turnaround, my legs just vanished on me which was incredibly frustrating. I felt like everything was uphill the entire way back, and ended up a lot slower than I should have been. Very disappointing to not be approaching 21mph on this course, let alone to be under 20mph.

Not screw up getting on the bike. Also, I have biked less in the past few weeks than I was before and it definitely seemed to affect me. Despite having been pretty good on the bike in my last few training sessions, I felt pretty weak here.

One of the best T2s of the entire race. No complaints. I seem to do this very well.

Nothing

Easily my best triathlon run ever. This run would've helped me on to a podium if I had done it in other events. Went out at 8:30, 8:13, and then 7:35 and was moving for the last .1 miles. Tried to hold of my friend and age group rival who is a better runner, but he pulled up to me right before the finish chute and he had a better kick than I did. Gave this run everything I had, pretty happy about it. Actually, as sad as it is to say, I had never broken 25:00 in a standalone 5K, so it is a shock to do it in a triathlon.

If I would have known my competitor had enough in him to catch me, I would have picked up my pace 1/4 or 1/2 mile earlier. However, I am not sure I had that in me. I gave it what I had and am not upset with myself for him pulling it out in the end of the run. Had I had a better bike, this may have been a moot point...even a better swim would have helped.

Stretched lightly, ate some of the post race stuff.


Bad focus on the bike, plus I felt weak there. Need to get back to training better on the bike.


Nothing bad to say about this race, as it is my favorite every year. We got lucky with the weather, as the day turned out nicer than I expected it to be. Next year I'll be in the 40-45 AG, so it will be a different adventure for me. Already looking forward to it.