This was a messed up leg. The lake was too shallow from the drought and you could stand up the whole swim. I tried to start swimming but was getting passed by people walking so started walking as well. This proved very tiring, perhapos more than swimming since the water was up to my chest. I stumbled over the buoy anchor at the second turn. I was exhausted by the time I got out of the water.

Well, I had to make a decision: swim or walk. I did a bit of both. It was really almost too shallow to swim in a few spots. I think if I were more self confident and less competitive I would have just swum the whole way, but I didn't like getting passed by people walking so I started walking as well.

There were no real problems in T1. I just tried to go as fast as I could, but since I put on socks it always takes me a little while

I need to learn to run and bike without socks eventually, but I am not competitive so right now I like the comfort.

I lost my water bottle when I went over the railroad tracks about 400 yds out of transition. It opened when it fell out of my cage so my GU20 water mix (all the calories and water I had) were gone immediately. I picked upd the bottle and kept going resolving that I was going to have a dry mouth for the next hour. I lost a good deal of time and momentum there as well. I ahd to wait to get the bottle off the course.

Got back on and kept going and ran into the hill. I had heard from the race director that it double crested. I would say more like quadruple crested. People were getting off their bikes and walking. It was dead silent except for all of us inching along and breathing hard. I was climbing at 4mph most of the way. After I rounded the first bend thinking I was nearly there I saw another huge incline and said out loud "fuck" and contemplated getting off. I decided right then that my goal for this race was not to get off my bike and walk it no matter how slowly I was going. around the next corner one guy was vomiting in the woods and someone else had on the roadside. I think they just went at the hill too hard.

The rest of the course was pretty much up and down steep for the first half and then it evened out a bit more. My mouth was really parched from all the heavy breathing while climbing and my calves started cramping the last 20 minutes. I am pretty sure that had to do with having no water as well, but it might have been my method fo sliding my ass forward and back on the seat to get different parts of my quads working on the hills. I might have stressed my calves too much doing that, or it might have been the wading in the water. In any case, somehting funky was going on because I have never had calf cramps before.

Someone was out on the course playing the Rocky theme and a guy near me said "nice music!" I laughed and said "I don't feel much like rocky right now, more like he has kicked my ass" There was a good spirit of comradery on the bike since it was hard.

There is a big steep hill right before the final turn into the park road. People were there cheering telling me "You're almost there!" That didn't really help when I was in my lowest granny going

Lose weight and ride more hills. I would like to blame my poor perfomrance on my being overweight but a Clyde much fatter than me passed me on one of the hills. Weight loss, and more hills, and riding this course every weekend would eb the way to improve.

This went fairly smoothly except I almost forgot my number in my tired haze. My Dad was outside the T area and yelled for me to get it. That was helpful.

I guess I need to stop sitting down to put my shoes on and to get fast laces, but I am really not that worried about shaving a few seconds of transition times at this point. These times were much better than in my last race.

I got out of T2 still with cotton mouth and was excited for the water. Had some water and gatorade. That was a bad idea as it ended up giving me stomach cramps. I should have only had one cup, but I had been thinking about having a drink ever since that first big hill on the bike, so nearly an hour. I tried to run at a good clip but I just didn't have it, whenever I tried to push it to 7 min or so pace I just immediately felt like stopping so I decided to just settle into what seemed like a nice jog and not worry about it.

I got stomach cramps around the 1 mile mark. I just kept going. It was all kind of a blur at the end there. I was pretty exhausted and was just really running on willpower. This was a bad race for cramps for me. I rarely have ever gotten them in my life and never when training (stitches yes, cramps no) so I don't know what was going on there.

Nott oo much. Weight is my biggest limiter besides just lack of training, so I plan on trainign more and losing weight.

Stretched had some water talked. Not much in the way of warmdown. I was way too tired.


Weight and lack of training. also I went out Friday night and that was really dumb, but I knew that when I did it...


It is a fun race if you don't mind the hills. There is a reason it is called "The Devil's Challenge" and not "The Devil's Lake Triathlon". Also no newbie should ride this course without a triple chainring. Please believe me on that.