The first 1/3 of the first lap was taken kind of slow. I didn't have an opportunity to get a swim WU in and with the week at home building the porch I though I should take a little bit of time to set up my rhythm.
To set myself up for this, I got on the heels of someone else and drafted him for this section of the first loop. About half way through this portion I began to either speed up or he slowed down. I decided this was the point I needed to take it up a notch.
I stayed right against the rope for the whole swim portion and I didn't need to do a lot of sighting. I was out in front of the main pack enough that I didn't need to fight for this position after the first 150 yards. The water was clear enough that I could see the rope from about 7-8 feet away.

I really think I performed better than I thought I was going to given the lack of WU and planning throughout the week.

I used a little different protocol for my own transition. I hit the lap button on my watch at the beach because there was long run up to the transition area and I like to see a time closer to my actual swim time rather than including my run into transition.
This TA was .2 miles away according to Garmin too. Quite a long run up regardless of the real distance.

This was a good transition. I wouldn't really change anything other than actually practicing them. Last night I had totally dry runs where I went through the physical motions of removing goggles, cap, wetsuit............

I went out very hard! From the time I left transition to about 5 miles in, I was pegging the HR monitor. I saw most of these miles at a HR that was not sustainable for the duration. I had to do some serious discussion with myself to back my effort down into a safe zone.
About 4-5 miles in, I decided to take my gel. I tore it from the duck tape on the top tube and promptly dropped it. Great I thought! I decided that my Heed was going to be my only calories on the bike and tried to drink most of it. I finished it with about 1 mile left on the bike.
The hills were definitely something that challenged me. There were a lot of them but none were huge. I had to work on my effort for these and I would say I didn't choose good gearing for many of these hills. In those cases I was going a little to easy and spinning to soon by gearing down to quickly.
The great thing about this ride was that I could see the pacing motorcycle for almost the entire ride, so I knew I was close to the front. This is what kept me from dropping my effort too much and probably drove me to work as hard as I could. At most points on the course I could tell I was in the top 3-4 positions but I was never certain exactly what position.
I was passed twice during the last 3-4 miles. One of the guys I was able to hold close, not more than 200 yards away and I reeled him back in to about 75 yards before the T2. The second guy passed me with about 1.5 miles left and he barely passed the other guy before heading into T2.

Nothing. This was a well executed bike leg. Not because I was so good, rather because I was pushing myself early and without restraint from the start. Knowing I was close to the front of the pack drove me to maintain a more hard pace. I became more and more unwilling to give up any positions the deeper into the ride I got.

I had my shoes off as I rode into the dismount area and when I threw my leg over my bike one of my shoes came off the pedal and landed a few feet away. This really didn't cause any really issues because it landed pretty close to the path I was moving. It actually would have appeared as a mistake on the bike leg but it was really a transition mistake.
At the most it cost me 2 seconds, nothing major.

Another good transition really. Everything seemed to go well.
I guess the practice of physically walking through everything made a pretty solid difference after all. I never would have thought it would have made a significant difference. I am pleased I took the time to do this practice session.

There were so many short hills that there was little time to recover. At some points I thought I was running uphill for a couple of miles. My HR was pretty high and my legs were screaming for relief for almost all of this segment.
The first mile I allowed myself to to relax a little before trying to pin my ears back. The first mile was the fastest but it had a very long downhill in the first couple of hundred yards and I allowed my legs to carry me down for the most part.
The rest of the run course was really difficult to run because of the rolling nature of the course. I remember at mile 2 thinking I didn't know if I could finish this race running the whole thing. I kept pushing through the pain and later the (mile5.5) side stitches from the level of effort I was putting out.
Once on the course, I passed the guy (Pat) that passed me in the last 1.5 miles of the bike (I followed him out of T2 about 10 seconds behind him). He later told me he wasn't even going to try to keep up with my pace and that I "dropped him like a bad habit." I wasn't so sure about that then and I am still not confident it was "like a bad habit."
At about mile 2.5-3 I passed the cyclist that passed me first on the bike. He was the one I held close to me. I was much slower approaching him than the other but once I passed him he was gone and he told me later he just didn't have the power to get up the hills to hold me close. Obviously these guys helped my personal confidence in my ability but I'll keep this close to me because I don't have that much confidence in what I can do all of the time. I think for some reason this race was a nearly perfect one for me and others this season won't go as well.

I am not certain I had the ability to do much more on this leg. I felt like I was on the red line for all but the first mile. Had I ran faster I still wouldn't have placed higher at all. The 1st place overall finisher came in more than 9 minutes faster than me. WOW!!!!!!!

I was to trashed to do any kind of warm down. The stitch had started to get worse and I couldn't get any breath for about 5 minutes after finishing.


I might have been able to perform a little better with better nutrition throughout the week and especially the last 2 days leading up the the race. I may have been able to shave a very small amount of time off but it wouldn't have been much.
I think today was just the planet alignment for me. I feel like I was outside and above my normal performance levels.


The RD put together a VERY challenging course. I loved the effort I had to put out today. I guess my mantra on race day is: "If it doesn't hurt, you didn't race hard enough." And this race hurt, so hats off to the RD for a well organized and developed race.
Results: http://www.teamtrifort.com/images/2012_images/POKAGON_2012_TRI_OLYM...