This swim felt very good. I never felt exhausted or like I needed a rest and never had to resort to breast or side stroke like my last race. The official water temp was 77.8 so wetsuits were legal but I opted to not wear mine...I think I'm going to sell my full suit and get a sleeveless. One of the things that seemed to get to me most at Hampton was that I started feeling very hot and constricted by the last 1/3 of the swim and that just made it all the worse. So I just wore my Team Javelin one-piece suit and it was great. I only got off course once. I managed to cut to the inside of the last turn bouy by about 10ft. It just came up so quickly. I took a look up to sight and didn't see the big yellow bouy anymore...I was already past it. Otherwise everything went very well. I wasn't all that fast compared to the rest of the people racing but it was my fastest OW swim this season by far and I felt very good when I got out of the water...that was my goal for the swim today. I was able to catch a few drafts here and there but really just focused on doing my own thing, keeping a nice steady rythm and remaining relaxed. I managed to make this swim about 2min faster than my last race and this was 100m longer.

I'm very happy with my swim considering how poorly my last race swim went. All I can do is train more and get faster. My goal for this season is to be a solid mid-pack swimmer and 33/69 puts me dead in the middle.

Since I decided not to wear my wetsuit i probably gav up 2-3min on the other 95% of the people who wore one so finding a wetsuit that I am completely comfortable with would have bumped me up ~80 positions into the mid 200s. I'm going to sell my full suit and pick up a sleeveless ASAP...hopefully I'll like that better.

The only time I had difficulty was when the assholes behind me climbed up my damn back. There were several times when someone would come up on me and take 5+ strokes all over my legs. When I tap a set of feet I make an immediate adjustment to keep from banging on them again...I guess not everyone is as considerate.

Good quick transition. I had a great rack position about 10ft from the bike in/out so I didn't have far to go. I downed 2 more Alieve before heading out.

I suppose I could cut 5-10 seconds off by learning to do the running leap onto the bike and then getting into my shoes but that really isn't a priority for me right now.

I loved this bike course. It was very hilly and I was eating people up from start to finish. I probably passed 50+ people and got passed by ~10 over the 27 miles. There was a 7.5% grade 1+ mile uphill at about mile 20...that kind of sucked but I kept my ass in the saddle and it all went fine. I hit 45.6mph on one of the longer downhills!

Go harder! I was concerned about burning my legs out if I cranked too hard up the hills since I don't have any hills to train on. Turns out I only averaged 158bpm and my cycle LT is 165 so I think I left some time on the course. Next time I'll know better. my goal for this season is to be a top 25% biker and 18/69 puts me at 26% so I'm really close.

Another great transition! Of course it helped that I only had to go 10ft into transition to my rack spot and then straight out the other end but I was in and out FAST.

Nothing...this was as good as it gets.

Most of the run was out in the sun so it got a little hot but they had 4 water stops so I was able to stay cool for the most part. I intentionally ingored my mile splits because I didn't really want to know. The goal was to run the best I could at the time and let the splits be what they were. One of the big mistakes I made at my last race was looking at my splits and that got into my head. Looking back at my HR data I bet I could have gone harder. I can maintain ~175bpm for a 10k and I only got my HR up there over the last mile. Like the bike course, I think I left some time out there...but I felt very good about my run overall.

Train harder! I just need to work on the bricks and develop more speed off the bike. My goal was to just run 7min/mile pace and I ended up averaging 6:40 without too much misery. I was happy with my run considering how poorly my run went at Hampton. My goal for this season is to be a top 10% runner and 8/69 puts me at 12% so I'm getting close.

Some walking, water, Gator, and a light jog back the course to find Jason and give him some encouragement into the finish.


Conditioning and a little inexperience. All 3 legs felt good and my transitions were fast. I only have 2 speed workouts under my belt this season and maybe 6 good bricks...and no hill work on the bike. I haven't peaked for the season and I didn't do a formal taper for this race. I also didn't know what to expect of my legs after all the hills on the bike so I didn't push it as hard as I could have (in retrospect...that's just a matter of getting more race experience and learning exactly how my body reacts to different types of courses). I'll be back next year and I'll cut at least 5min off my total time.

I was just happy that I felt so good about everything. I came out of the water with a very positive attitude and the carried me the rest of the day. I didn't experience anything like I did in Hampton a few weeks back so I either made HUGE progress with my training the last couple weeks or I just had a really off day at Hampton. This race was a 100% opposite experience and I loved it.


I loved this race...everything from my performace to the organization, to the course itself. 2 enthusiastic thumbs up for Diamond in the Rough!!!

My only complaint is that they use non-standard distances (1 mile, 27 miles, 5 miles) so I can't compare it as directly to other Oly distance races.