shore to shore time was 8:03. official time was 9:18, which included the 150 meter or so run from shore to T1 mat.

Seeded myself about 4 people back. slugged it out until the first buoy until weaker swimmers "died" out. Found some feet but were not right speed. Swam w/o draft, then picked up some other feet. Stayed on those for a little but lost them.

I realized that halfway through the swim my RPE was about 70% so I decided to pick it up since...after all...this IS a sprint race. Picked it up to about 80% in last 200 yards.

Swim much faster. I didn't swim even CLOSE to "full throttle" contrary to my coach's instructions. I don't know why I didn't go all out...I guess my head wasn't right at the beginning of the race...oh well...

T1 was WAY TOO LONG. I hate this race because you have to "pack your bags". Essentially makeing sure all your belongings are securly stuffed into a small bag before exiting T1. The race directors then bus your T1 bag to the finish. If I didn't have to go packing, I would have cut this T1 time in 1/2 EASILY.

Dumb race.

Wetsuit didn't come off quickly enough. work on that. Also would bring a towel since T1 was 100% gravel (OUCH!) and I used my neighbor's towel a bit (sorry).

Definately the hillyest course I've raced by far.

A bike mechanic completely screwed up my rear/high limit screw so I dropped the chain into the spokes the day before the race !!!

Ended up getting it fixed enough (by a different mechanic of course) to race but I still couldn't use gear 7 or 8 (cassette was bent up too much). Gears 7 and 8 would have been slighly useful in climbing the hills (can you sense my sarcasm?).

In addition to No 7 or 8 gear, I also couldn't drop into my 11 tooth ring so that limited my top end speed by probabaly 7-8 mph easily.

So I was effectively racing on a 12 speed ! !

If I had all my gears I definately would have had a faster bike split...no question.

Regardless, I biked strong, didn't get passed once, hit a top speed of 44mph and passed a ton of athletes on the climbs.

With an average of 20mph on a crippled 12-speed bike, I am definatley happy with my bike split.

I was also happy that my cadence technique training paid off with my 97rpm avg cadence.

Not go back to the stupid mechanic that doesn't even know how to adjust limit screws. Can you believe that?

T2 wasn't slow as molasses too because we had to zip tie all our gear in a bag to the bike rack. so instead of having everything laid out like usual, I had to fish out all my stuff after breaking the zip tie...can you say "waste of time"?

Saw coredump exiting T2. It was nice to see him, it energized me and made me smile/laugh...which is exactly what I needed before Heartbreak Hill.

go to T2 in the morning, break open the zip tie and lay out my stuff.

Damn, they are not joking around with that freggin' hill out of T1. I swear it felt like my V02 max test! Seriously! Same grade and same exertion effort running...er...joggin up the 10%-12% grade. CRAZY!

After that I concentrated the rest of the entire run leg on good cadence and optimal form.

I ran all the way up to diaphram cramping, then backed off just a tad. It worked like a charm. I definately found out the fastest running speed I could hold using this method. Diaphram cramping occured at right about 170-171 bpm.

Train on some hills...that's for sure. I was a little weakling on the hills as evidenced by my Mile 1 split vs my Mile 3 split!

That hill kicked my @ss for sure.

Before the race I said to myself that if I could average 7:30min/miles considering the hills, I would be happy. My 7:18 pace made me smile!

Couldn't get into T2 to get my Ultragen so I had to just drink water a bit of gatorade and a banana...oh well.


In order of importance:

(1) A dumb bike mechanic
(2) My mind not right at start of swim
(3) No run training on 10% grades


Even though the race was well run, it's a clusterf*ck of a race. You have to be a Logistics officer to figure out how to navigate the pre-race and post-race shuttles, T2/T2, gear bags, parking areas, etc.

I will definately NEVER do this race again. It's too short for how far of a drive it is, have to drive 87 miles on a 2 lane road, a logistical nightmare, and has wussy race directors that were going to cancel the 600 meter swim because the water might have been below 60 degrees.

In my 8 years of racing, I've never been to such a race.

The good thing about the race is the bike course. Stagecoach Road is smooth as glass...like riding on a pool table with some great climbs.