The start corral was superb! The waves were launched 3(?)min apart from a makeshift startline. All the teams chant, sing, jump, or perform some sort of ritual before a race, so the corral turns into a dance party of sorts and it's VERY loud. We sang the fight song, clapped lots, and yelled "Go Green!" "Go White!" We had a group "prayer" led by Scott followed by some amens and a few shaloms. Then the waves lined-up and the race was on.

Tim and I decided to take it easy and not push as we had a surprise for these fellas on the bike. So we stayed to the back and outside of the start pack and let all those jack rabbits run off to their sub 6min/mi. It was a new race because instead of putting 3-4min into most of these stellar runners on the swim and then forcing them to chase me down on the run, I had to concede 3-4min at the start and then try and get it back on the bike in spades then hold them off on the run. Ugh.

SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM SWIM

We didn't get T-times because there weren't enough mats race morning... what? So I'm going with my gut and watch on these times.

Have an actual time

zooM zoOM zOOM ZOOM

Like I said, I was pissed race morning, lots of rage. Then I had to watch all these fleet feet goons run away from me on the first 1.8mi. My exact thought leaving T1 was very Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven, "all you sons a bitches got it coming now." The first 4mi was nothing but me calling out "on your left" "on your right" as I passed 75% of my wave and 90% of the first women's wave.

At the first big hill a group of 4 guys had formed behind me and this was the setup I'd been waiting on for weeks! I slowed just enough to encourage the pack to suck my wheel up the hill and then started to grind them down as we neared the top. When we crested the hill and hammered down the other side (I hit 39mph, yum yum) a few of the guys were blowing hard and for the first time ever in a race I felt faster and stronger than my competition.

When we reached the second big, long hill it was all but over the them and it was only 10mi into the race! I sat and spun up the hill for the first half, then stood up out of the saddle, looked back, dropped it down two gears, and hammered the last 1/2. When I got to the top the group had broken and they were all dragging. Simply awesome. I didn't see any of them again during the race.

The rest of the bike was more of the same: me wanting to die, pushing as hard as possible, hoping for a flat so the pain would stop, and singing Jay-Z's "99 Problems" in my head.

"Bounce on the Devil, put the pedal to the floor!"

Nothing... except maybe SWIM at a TRIathlon.

Smooth and fast, good dismount, maybe my best ever.

Did I mention the wanting to swim thing? So, yeah, swimming would be good.

My feet were frozen solid coming out of T2 and I ran on those blocks of wood for about the first 1mi before I got the feeling back. I had a wicked side stitch that would work out so I stopped for a total of about 20sec to get my arms up and belly breath. That helped and I was running full tilt by mile two.

I was passed by a lot of the runners I didn't put enough time into on the bike :( Can we swim yet? I latched onto a dude from Cal and went old skool cross country on him. I ran on top of his heels right over his right shoulder for the entire first loop. On the second loop he pushed the pace up one of the risers and I lost him by about 10ft but he didn't finish the move! So I tracked him down immediately and pushed his pace even more. At the last aide station (1.5mi to go) I made my move on him and he didn't respond, he broke.

The run went okay. I expected to hold 7's for the whole thing, but my legs were fried from the bike. I just didn't have enough in the tank to get going that fast. After not being passed by anyone on the bike, seeing all those people from the first wave finishing their second laps and getting passed by people from my wave was demoralizing.

I pushed way too hard on the bike and paid the price on the run, but what choice did I have? The race strategy of a duathlon is completely different from a triathlon if one is not a runner. Instead of spreading out the field during the swim we had to run a 3K pursuit. No good at all.

Sitting in the Sun chillin' with my MSU crew and cheering on the other finishers. The after race food was a stinker. But I got bananas and plenty of water, so the essentials were covered.


ummmm... no swim.


The MSU men finished 16th out of 34 teams, the women finished 22nd. Had we swam I would have gone around 2:16, so I am very excited for this race season to start. But now the focus turns to Ironman Moo in September and executing a perfect race.