Swim was very pleasant - water temperature was just high enough so they announced "no wetsuits", which was a little bit of a bummer. My approach was to "Just Do It", and make sure I could successfully complete this distance in open water. Once I figured out that I wasn't going to drown, I picked up the pace for the last 1/3rd. I really can't complain, considering how much purple is in my training graphs!

Swim a bit more aggresive pace from the beginning - I had more to give, but held back to make sure I would finish.

LONG run out of the water to T1 - I'm pretty sure (based on Tink's watch) that I spent less than a minute actually in T1, so I'm pleased with the performance.

Nothing!

I was VERY worried about my performance on this section - between the stepped up distance and the hills, I was pretty scared. The plan I used was aimed at getting me through the worst of it at a do-able pace for the first ~19 miles. After that, the majority was down hill and fast; at one point I clocked in at 39.5mph - I'm sorry, but that sounds darn scary on a bike to me!
I had brought 3 gels on the bike; I took 2 through the course, which ended up being 1 too many. I had major discomfort in my stomach from the fluids and gels, which hung around for quite a while. Looking back, I was trying to use nutrition to compensate for lack of strength, which doesn't work out very well (unless that nutrition is Tri-crack or something!).

TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN! I need to find some additional strength on the bike, which can only come from more discipline in my training.

Executed pretty much as good as I could expect. No complaints!

Nothing.

Major disappointment here for me. I have always turned to my run as my strength in the race, and I think I sorely underestimated how much that bike segment was going to take out of me. My goal was to clock 7:45s, at least sub 8s, neither of which I came close to. I spent the first 2-3 miles recovering from my over-nutrition from the bike. I walked through 3 water stops, just to sip a bit and dump the rest on my head. I did manage to pick up the pace for about the last 1.5 miles, but it was through tears. I've never run on such an empty tank before - I wanted to quit so bad, but pressed through with a little help from my emergency-use-only mantra, "I am strong, I can last, I can run a race real fast". If I'm using that puppy, I'm in DEEP doodoo.

Perhaps some more brick training at these distances would help. Definitely fix my nutrition approach.

After the finish, I concentrated on not relieving myself of the gels still sitting in my stomach, and walked around with my wonderful support crew (Tink and kiddos). After about 30 minutes, I had finally recovered, and could somewhat walk normal again.


I would have to say, I really went into my Olympic distance debut with a Sprint mentality; I can bang out a sprint without much of a bother, but this distance really reflected my summer and the lack of training I was able to do. I'm not too upset at my AG and overall placing; this race was the USAT Mid-Atlantic tri club championship, and I swear there were MANY MANY more extremely fast people at this race than usual! I don't think I have ever seen so much cycling bling in transition than this race. Once I get done licking my wounds, I'm sure my perspective on this performance will temper. But for now, I swear even the swim was uphill! I did my first Olympic tri, and in the end crossed the finish line standing. Good enough for one day's work.



CGI Racing knows how to attract race sponsors! We walked away, after the post-race awards and raffle, and including race swag, with a t-shirt, 4 oversized water bottles, a large bottle of Hammergel, a TYR transition bag, a $50 gift cert. to trisports.com, and a new racebelt!
Organization was nearly flawless. Only comment would be, all racers had to park about a mile away and walk in. The young guys all had backpacks and road their bikes, but with a family, this wouldn't work too well. Also, in the race lots, there was a bit of chaos in getting the cars parked; a parking attendant would have made the process a bit smoother, and probably could have facilitated better efficiency in the car arrangement.