I went out way too fast on this, but I'm not really surprised it happened. About the only time I don't go full throttle on a race swim is when I'm in the longer races. Something about being in the pool with all those people lined up behind me makes me ready to fire off the wall with a quickness. I actually drafted off a couple people for probably 50 yards or so; I never get a chance to do that so I thought I'd give it a shot. I think I did a pretty good job for having next to no practice. I slowed down in the last 100-125 yards as I tried to control my breathing, and I think that helped me during T1.

Maybe control my effort(and thus my breathing) a little better.

It was the typical T1, not much to report. I had some of my stuff covered as it was sprinkling before the race and that might have slowed me a bit, but that's pretty minor.

Not much.

I never let up during this ride, I just kept cranking as hard as I could. I told Gary prior to the race that when I passed him on the run I'd shake my butt at him; well I caught him on the first lap of the bike. I held up my end of the deal, I got out of the saddle and gave a waggle as I sped by. I think he enjoyed it a little too much, but who could blame him? A red mantard is just too much for any mere mortal to ignore. I kept on speeding past people, passing more people than passed me(a good sign) and attacking the hills. The wind was a beast of a crosswind, there were a couple of times where I was almost blown off my bike. That's the downside of the HED 3s, they're like sails when dealing with crosswinds. I started to have some of the knee pain I had the day before with Tommy, and I think I'm doing something wrong when I'm pushing really hard because it goes away when I throttle back my effort. Maybe my knees are getting out in front of my cleats or something, I'll have to sort that out before the next race. Other than that, the bike went well. The only people that passed me and stayed ahead were guys in aero position on tri bikes(another good sign), and I managed to reel a couple of them back in during the bike.

Not much, maybe throttle it back just a bit for the next race.

I came flying into T2 and did a flying dismount at a speed way faster than I anticipated(I don't even know how fast I was going, but I was sprinting full-stride right off the bike) which went off flawlessly...except that I threw a shoe when I jumped. As I came in I could hear Dave, Karen, and a couple of others screaming at me(in an encouraging way, obviously) and when I made the leap and started running full stride I heard half of the crowd do something that sounded like "WOOOO!-awww" as they saw the leap then noticed the shoe. I started to slow down during the turn - which isn't as easy as it sounds when you're sprinting with a bike and dealing with jelly legs - and I heard 4-5 different directions as some people were trying to tell me where the shoe was, others were telling me to leave it, and yet others were screaming who had the shoe. All I knew is I couldn't spot the shoe and I wasn't about to take a penalty over a f*cking shoe. Eventually a photographer tossed it in my general direction, so I picked it up and headed into T2. After that it was the standard helmet off/shoes on/head out to the run business.

Learn to do the dismount without twisting my left foot; that should keep the shoe on the cleat.

I was flying out of T2; for the first 1/2 mile my average was near an 8:10 pace. I had to make a conscious effort to slow down because there was no way I was keeping an 8 minute pace for the whole 5k. Maybe if it was flat with no wind, but I didn't think it was realistic given the current conditions. I still finished the run pretty close to gassed at the 8:35-8:45 pace, but it was much more under control.

The run was definitely hillier than I expected; I thought it was going to be pretty flat but on the back side of the run there were some small(but consistent) rolling hills along with one extended incline/decline to deal with.

Maybe get my HR under better control; if I pushed this hard at CapTex I would have cracked.

Drank, ate, etc.

I got to see quite a few faces I hadn't seen in awhile; Dave, Steve, Marcy, Craig, Jen, Gary, & others. It was nice to re-connect with all of them, I've been cloistered in my workout cave and haven't really spoken with anyone the last few months.


A caveat to the 'drink stations' question: it was fine yesterday for me given that it was cool outside, but I answered 'no' because I heard several others talk about wanting another station out there and if it was hotter, people would have been cracking all over the course. There was a great spot for a station not 200 yards from the finish line too, so it felt like they slacked on the stations...again. I would think after Disco 2 years ago, they would be hyper-vigilant about something like that.

The chip timing was a mess. There was no timing mat at the start of the swim(they were recording start times by a PDA and pen & paper??), the finisher's clock stopped working before 2/3 of the people finished, and when they finally put the results online late last night, they were all sorts of wrong. Everybody has bad days, I get that. I've never been at a race done by 'Race Chip Timing.com' before so I don't know if this is par for the course(they did St. Patty's too, so somebody could comment on that race vs. this one) but I sure hope not.

I'll admit I have a soft spot for DA/DSU; they're the first group ride I ever went with and I like the people involved in the organization. I go to their Wednesday night rides regularly and used to swim with them frequently as well. Tom & Danny(and everyone else involved) are good guys and I know they want to put on a fun event. They're just not good on the details or hitting all the marks that somebody like Jack from Ironhead does. It seems like when they improve one thing, another thing falters. They fixed the aid station issue at Disco, but the shirts were awful. They get the shirts right, but then the chip timing company they use sucks. It just seems like they never quite turn the corner. I'm rooting for these guys to get it right because they make fun themes and have a good attitude about trying to help people out, I just don't know if they're ever going to fire on all cylinders.