The decision to go ahead with the swim was made right before the start time. The surf was pretty heavy but better than the day before. During packet pickup the day before you could see the beach and the waves looked pretty spooky. On race day it was only slightly better so they shortened the swim from 1000 meters to 600, everyone was relieved, you could hear a collective sigh. I would call this swim 'extreme' but fun, once I broke through to calmer surf was able to get some rythm until I reached the surfer, then it was body surfing all the way back in with minor course corrections and some stroking. I thought is was very challenging and fun, I would have been dissapointed if we didn't get to do the swim. My whole point of driving from Oklahoma to SPI was to do an ocean type swim! Very cool.

Swim side stroke over the top of the breakers.

Over all fairly good

This was a non-drafting race (aren't they all?), it even said so in the pre-race instructions yet some people still broke the rules. The first indication that you were breaking the rules is when the guy in the striped shirt came by on a motorcycle and wrote your number down...gee why was he doing that (uhhh...time penalty)?? At some places it looked like a Saturday group ride, fifteen to twenty riders wheel to wheel! They are probably the same people that are going to complain about the race. Other than that I had a good ride. Some headwind on the way out, but that made for a fast stretch on the way back.

Nothing, maybe warn people the 'Ref' was coming. They probably would wonder what the heck I was talking about.

Speedy here....just dropped helmet and went out the chute.

Little slower than normal. Heart rate was probably too high coming off the bike.

Wear my HRM on the bike to keep tabs on my condition.

I think I wasn't fueled right. My GU packet fell off the bike and where I normally would have taken on carbs midway through the bike I didn't. So I think my run suffered a bit. I did feel a little weak at the end.


This was the first time SPI had a Tri on the Island, it seemed the city folks bent over backwards helping to make it a success cudos to them. Also many thanks to the volunteers!