I lined myself up front with my age group to start. At the horn there were only two of us out front which made for a very clean start. The other gentleman proved that he was the much faster swimmer, and after a few hundred yards he had passed me, failing to first stay off his left hip and then to stay on his feet. After he was gone I was essentially on my own, weaving in and around the traffic of the two earlier waves for the rest of the swim, but it was nothing too crazy. With about 200 yards to go I spotted another blue cap from my age group off to the right while breathing. I wasn't expecting him. But his stroke looked smooth and strong, whereas mine felt labored and a little erratic. Seeing him made me refocus on my technique and I was thus able to have a good finish while not losing any more time to him.

Great swim overall. Water was a perfect temp with little to no chop. Best time on the swim course by a few seconds.

Long run up to transition. I really struggled to get my wetsuit off of my arms this time while running up to my spot. Usually it's my feet that give me trouble. Respectable transition time. Only hiccup was that the strap on one of my shoes slipped out of the buckle loop and I had to re-thread it through.

4/65
29/394

I got up to speed fairly well. I noticed that my breathing was not at a labored, panting rate like it usually is coming out of transition. This makes it much more easy to start getting into bike race mode, instead of waiting for things to internally calm down. I attacked the hills as planned: not overly exerting myself getting up the hill and then maximizing my speed as much as I could going down them. I pushed a solid, consistent speed on the flats without overly reaching beyond what I could sustain for long period of time.

Great ride overall. Had a lot of fun out there. A bike course PR by a few seconds from two years ago. Slightly disappointed it wasn't more - I would hope that I would have made more progress in my weakest discipline in that span of time.

Smooth and efficient.

5/65
35/394

Another solid leg of the race here. I didn't feel spectacular but my legs were carrying me along at a decent pace. This was a bit of a painful run, but it never got to the point where my pace suffered. Once I hit mile 4 I new I could crank it up a notch to finish the race without having to worry about blowing up.

Another course PR and 10k PR. Perhaps I can pull out a sub-40 minute race split one day?

Just some socializing after the race.


Lack of outdoor bike riding. I have nothing to be disappointed about in this race. The only thing that keeps me from completely rejoicing in my own performance is my bike split. I would've liked to see something a bit faster, but something like that isn't going to happen for me just because want it to. I've got to do more to earn it.


Well done race. Lots of swag given out. Noticed an increased presence of USAT race officials in transition and on the bike course, which is good.