Water felt chilly, but it was warmer than the outside temps...by alot. I was hanging out with Jason and headed over to the swim with him. As we got there, a guy that had never done a tri asked a few questions and I tried to answer them as best I could

We watched the "Open" wave take off, then proceeded to get into the water. Brr!

When the horn went off, we took off. I could feel the wetsuit tugging on my arms, shoulders, and neck and knew this would be the last time I'd wear it. Halfway through the swim, it felt as though I was in a wet paper bag and my arms and shoulders were tired from the constriction of the suit.

I have to admit that swim training leading up to this event wasn't all that great. I was in the pool less than once a week.

Finished up, thinking I was at a worst case scenario of 15 mins and did a double take when I saw I was closer to 17. WTF? Wow, what a disaster.

Not wear that wetsuit and get in the pool more!

Blazed into T1, but my arms were tired. I had trouble reaching the strap to unzip my suit and decided to just take it off as I got closer to T1.

This was a pretty poor T1 for me.

Jumped on my bike, velcroed shoes, and took off hard. I didn't see Jason's bike in T1, so I assumed that he was way ahead, due to my poor swim. I was going to go hard to chase him down.

I put my head down, started to hammer, and started to catch up to other cyclists. The goal was to not let up until I saw Jason. I never saw him. I know he's been racing CX this offseason, so I figured he had a really strong bike and was far ahead.

No one passed me during the first loop, and I started the second loop and increased effort a little. I also got a little lower, shrugged more, and tried to get more aero. I was pushing it hard and was in the danger zone. One minute seemed like one hour, but I kept going, trying to catch, or even get a glimpse, of Jason.

Finally came into the finish, dismounted, and ran into Transition. I glanced around, saw a few bikes, to include a P2 (Jason's?) and racked bike.

Overall, a very good ride for me. No one passed me, but that could just have been a byproduct of a crappy swim. The second loop was faster and required less watts, which I'll attribute to the fact that I consciously made an effort to get more aero. The difference is quite startling. 213w for the first loop vs. 201w for the second loop, with the second loop being faster.

Focus on aero right away.

I got into T2 and my feet were frozen and my legs quivering. I actually had trouble putting my running shoes on b/c of those factors. I could not slide my feet into my shoes, so had to really work to get them on. I wondered how my run would feel if I was having this much trouble getting shoes on.

I never got around to putting speed laces on my shoes. That might of helped.

Time to catch Jason!

I came out of transition running hard. I was tired, my legs felt wobbly, my feet were two ice blocks, but I wanted to catch Jason. I expected to run low to mid 18 minutes and I knew it was going to be uncomfortable.

I went through the first mile, looked at my Garmin, and picked it up a little more. I kept looking out for Jason up ahead and could not see him. Man, he's WAY ahead! I then saw some guys starting to run the other way and kept an eye out. My plan was to see how many seconds he was in front of me, and then surge to make that time up.

I got to the turn around and never saw him. What? I kept running hard, thinking I might of missed him, and then saw him at my two mile mark. He high fived me and I shouted encouragement to him.

THe pace was hard and uncomfortable, but I thought I had a chance to catch others in my AG. I passed a guy here or there, then saw the finish and ran as hard as I could and finished.

Good run for me.

Walked around a bit, waited for a few buds to finish, then hung out. We checked rankings and I was a bit disappointed to see that I was 14th OA and 5th in my AG. Man, this new AG is tough!

I didn't know it until later in the day, but I had a first! Fastest run of the day! That was exciting. All that run training paid off this past winter. :)


THE SWIM!


Good race. Lots of fun. Sprints always hurt, though. :)