A truly great swim for me. Didn't take in any salt water. Felt calm and confident the whole time. Was moving quickly without any real effort. Finished last 50 very strong. Managed to pick some very good lines, which cut some distance compared to others. I didn't draft at all b/c no one was around me.

Everyone leaves me in the dust in the first 100m, then I catch them. I know I'm supposed to push hard on the first 200, then settle in, but I sort of prefer holding the same pace throughout. It's always fun catching the pack somewhere around 300m.

Goal time: 14:29 +/- goal: 1:30 under

Nothing.

T1 time was good, but didn't do well getting wetsuit off. Almost fell over as I tried to get out of it. Also, didn't put my helmet liner on right (see bike note for why that matters). Looking back, this may be where the wheels started to fall off.

Goal time: 1:51 +/- goal: 0:06 over

Put my helmet liner on right.

Where do I start? Well, let's start with the first thing that went wrong. I'm going up the first hill and realize that my helmet liner isn't quite right. So I get the great idea to take the helmet off and fix it on the fly. Only, I forgot that I had already put on my sunglasses, which were over the helmet straps. So... the helmet comes off and the sunglasses go flying. I naturally lunge to grab them and forget I'm on a bike on a windy road. I wobble, I start to go down. Glasses go down. Helmet goes down. I am not clipped out and nearly eat it big time. Instead, I manage to unclick at the last moment and set the bike down as I go running forward. I gather everything and keep going, with only a few seconds lost. Best thing: nobody was around to see all this. Nobody knows I'm an idiot (unless they read this).

Enter item number two: I didn't check my gears after the bike came off the ferry. Apparently, someone leaned something against my derailleur, because the bike won't shift into the big chainring. No, this has nothing to do with the crash above. I put the bike down on the side opposite the derailleur. On every downhill or even slight descent, my competition rides away from me. ARGH! On lap 2, I figure out how to trick the derailleur into the big chainring. My time is affected severely by this problem.

Enter item no. 3: The race director said there was one thing that could get you DQ'ed. That is to ride the area where you must walk. It's a semi-steep downhill with a slight left hand turn at the bottom. No biggie. Three of us get to that hill at the same time. A volunteer is there with a stop sign. We dismount. Someone asks how will we know when to get back on. The volunteer says, "They'll tell you." We run down the hill and around the corner looking for the person to tell us to get back on. After AT LEAST a quarter mile run on flat roads, I say "this is stupid" and get back on the bike. One guy with me concurs. The third guy (who won the race, by the way) was about 300 yds ahead of us by this point (boy could he run with the bike). We catch him and he gets on. On lap two, we see that at the bottom of the hill they've put up a sign that says "riding allowed". So.... we ran an extra 1/4 mile because they didn't have the sign up in time (or possibly we didn't see it b/c we were looking for a person). ARGH!!!! Obviously, it didn't affect the winner, but I'm sure I lost a good 2 minutes of time here.

The bike is normally my strongest area. Today, it was pitiful. MY HR was much higher throughout because of the bad gearing and I'm sure my overall was hurt by the extra run in bike shoes.

Goal time: 40:37 +/- goal: 3:18 over

Check my bike before the race. I checked everything the night before, but didn't check it after strangers handled it and stacked it with 120 other bikes in a boat. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The fix was one quick turn of the screw, but it cost me some serious time and consternation.

Also, don't fix my helmet liner on the fly. I'm lucky I didn't really go down.

Didn't take off shoes because there was a steep downhill with a hard turn coming into the transition area. Wanted to have full control there.

My transition area was away from most others, which made it easy to get to and easy to find. Centrally located as well (great decision).

Couldn't get my socks on today. Feet were still a bit wet, so they kept getting stuck.

Goal time: 1:21 +/- goal: 0:10 under

Pick different socks/find a way to get them on quickly with wet feet.

The first hill broke my spirit. It was a killer, even though it was only maybe 150m long. I got over that issue and made it to the top of the hill and felt my GU kick in (right where I needed it). I went into the gravel trail feeling ready for anything. I was completely alone as I hit the homestead area, when....

At the junction of the homestead loop, there were two signs, one that said left turn and one that said right. They were maybe 15 feet apart. Following those directions, I went onto this little 100 yard loop that put me back on the trail out to the turnaround spot. After running a few hundred meters toward the turnaround, I realized that if that were right, the run would be way too short. That right turn sign must have been for something else. Then I look back toward the homestead and see a sign at the bottom of the hill. Woops! I was supposed to run down and around the loop. So I backtrack and head down there and around. It turns out that the right turn sign was for the people coming out of the homestead loop, not the people going into it. Not the greatest sign placement but if anyone were in there when I got there it would have been easy to figure out.

That 1/5 mile of extra distance by getting lost broke my spirit completely and ruined my overall time. The hill coming out of the homestead area would have hurt regardless, but by being pissed off atmyself, I didn't have the focus to power up there or to power toward the finish. A group of 5 people passed me in the final mile. Normally, I would have had the drive to stick with them. Instead, I let them go. I did kick over the final downhill mile, which helped the time, but I'm sure I could have gone faster.

Goal time: 23:13 +/- goal: 1:13

Not get lost.

Lots of stretching and drinking water. Ferry didn't leave for two hours, so I had plenty of time to eat the free trail mix and fruit and relax.


Getting lost, poorly working bike, running when I could have been riding. Also, should have done more hill/speed work. Even if I didn't get lost on the run, I don't run fast enough for my skill level.


This is the second year they've done this race. Very friendly group and pretty well organized, but some improvements could be made.

There were lots of signs everywhere, but because they were put on trees/bushes where they could get blown around, some were hard to understand. They were also in like 14pt font, which is hard to see on a bike at 20mph. The leaders actually turned around on the bike where the run turnaround was because they read the sign wrong. The word "RUN" was in like 10pt font, which you couldn't see on the bike.

All in all, I told myself beforehand that a top 20 finish with a top 3 in my age group would be a good day (I really wanted to place in my age group). With all the problems, I still managed the top 20 finish and I got close to placing in the age group. I guess that's not bad, but I can only imagine what would have happened if things had gone right.

Below Target HR: 4:16
In Target HR: 60:36
Above Target HR: 5:43 (should have spent more time here)

There's always the next race....

Overall Goal: 1:21:30 +/- goal: 3:01 over.

** note: after the race, the director gave everyone a free entry to a race north of Reno the last weekend in August. Sprint/Oly on roads. Supposed to be beautiful and he's trying to promote the first year event. Nice little surprise. Wish I had the time to do it.