I seeded myself in about the 3rd row of swimmers, and found that I was treading water right behind my friend Craig and his brother Neil. The horn sounded and I paused for a moment to try and avoid taking feet to the face from everyone going horizontal in the first two rows. Then I was off and moving.

The swim had us head across the lake for 400M, make one left turn and then aim straight for shore. Even though there were some good sized buildings on the dock, I couldn’t sight any of them from further back, and focused on the buoys. I felt like I was getting left behind a bit at the beginning, and was maybe taking it a little too easy. I focused myself into a better rhythm and tried to keep pace with one swimmer matching my speed. When I realized we were pretty evenly matched I slotted in behind him and tried to draft as much as possible. I hoped he was sighting well and did my best to stay with him, but after about 10 minutes I realized that he was moving all over the place, and kept pausing to sight. I decided it was time to let him go, and I moved off on my own. This actually let me find a better pace and I passed him, and found that as we were approaching the dock I was gaining on some other swimmers. Once we reached the dock there was a long run down the dock, and across the street into the transition area. I felt good getting out of the water, and was happy with my swim considering it remains my weak link.


Not sit on feet just for the sake of drafting. May (or may not) have cost myself a little time doing this.

Ran to the rack and found that Scott’s bike was already gone along with others in my AG. I really struggled to get my wetsuit off my legs and lost a bit of time, but otherwise things went fairly well. But in this race, I was assuming every second would count. Ran past the rack with Craig and Neil’s bikes, and as expected only Neil’s bike was left.

Get the suit off faster - lost a few seconds here.

I didn’t have an absolute power number in mind, but I was aiming to try and be in the mid 220’s for this race. I had ridden the course about a month earlier and knew that while it was a pretty lumpy undulating course, it was also reasonably fast. My goal was to simply push as hard as I could and catch Craig and Scott and anyone in my age group.

That plan didn’t last too long as two guys in my AG went by me within a few minutes. I kept the power high and passed them both back, but eventually they passed me again, and I didn’t go by them again. I made the mistake of letting them go, and in hindsight I should have pushed to keep them in sight. At km 6 I caught and passed Scott – he’s usually a good cyclist, but it turns out he had no legs for the ride on this day and struggled. So now I just had to catch Craig.

When I pre-rode the race course the most scenic section was in really bad shape – but luckily most of this had been repaved which made for a really nice ride. There were still some crappy sections, but for the most part the road was good.

As I was within a few km of the turn around I started to see the leaders coming the other direction. I was specifically looking for Craig since I figured he had about 2-2:30 lead coming out of the water. Within 200M of the turn around I saw him coming the other way – and he looked surprised to see me. I figured I must be having a really good ride at this point to catch him, but it turned out I was only 45 sec behind after the swim. It took me another 6-7km of chasing to finally catch and pass him.

I felt like I had pushed to catch up with Craig and once I passed him, I didn’t have quite the same impetus to keep going hard. Looking back at my power numbers, I really hadn’t ridden as hard as I should of for most of the race. Within a couple of km, Craig passed me back, and then I had to repass him. I also got passed by someone else in my AG, and this forced me to work a little harder and get ahead again. But truth is the legs weren’t feeling like they could go much harder. AP = 211, NP = 216, Avg HR 169, 1561 feet elevation gain. I attribute the weaker power to simply not riding enough over the past few months.

Coming in to the last few bends before a big downhill to T2 I slipped out of my shoes and got ready to run. My wife really cheered me on when she saw I had passed the other two on the bike, and that gave me a little extra incentive for the run.


Push harder. I have not been using my PM to my advantage this season.

Racked the bike quickly and got rid of both the helmet and sunglasses. I decided to just wear a hat and hope that any breeze would cool my face during the run since the temps had really climbed. Had a really hard time struggling with my run shoes, and finally got going.

Feet were hot and the shoes just wouldn't go on. Not sure how I avoid this in the future.

As soon as I exited transition, I was side by side with Craig as he had a quick transition. In our last Sprint race we ran within 4sec of each other over 5km. I figured I was in for a hard run near the end to see who would get the bragging rights. He surged ahead at the beginning and I decided to just hold my pace rather than respond. I unzipped my trisuit as far as it would go and just aimed to stay cool and relaxed. Within a couple of minutes I had passed him back. As I ran through the first water station I found one of the 2 guys that had passed me on the bike, and went by him.

Now I found myself all alone. I didn’t dare look back because I didn’t want to know how close Craig was – just focus on my own pace. That said, I do better when I have someone to chase, and in this case there was no-one around. It’s a tough run course with very little flat, and you’re either going up an incline or down a decline (423 feet elevation gain). The road also winds around, so you can’t see into the distance, hence the feeling like I was running alone. I only took on water at each of the aid stations as I’d had a gel halfway through the bike and knew that would hold me till the end of the race. But I could have done with more water stations. The other thing about this run is that it is mostly exposed to the sun – which was pretty hot on this day (luckily no humidity).

As I reached the turnaround I knew this is where I’d find out how I was doing. I turned, and saw nobody, ran around the first bend, and still no-one, and then on the second bend Craig and I passed each other. He looked like he was suffering a bit, and at this point I knew I wasn’t going to be caught by him. By km 6 my quads were starting to protest a little from all the ups and downs, but still I had no-one to chase. Finally running (shuffling) up the last of the bigger hills at the km 8 marker I passed someone in my AG who had been relegated to a walk. I didn’t feel very strong at that point and only hoped they wouldn’t find some new energy and pass me back. I looked over my shoulder a couple of times in the final 2km just to make sure no-one was catching me, and pushed the final km as much as possible. Avg HR 173 for the run.


Pay more attention to pace and allow myself to push a bit more.

Cooled off, found my wife (she found me), and waited for my friends to finish. I won the group race by just over 3min, so bragging rights were mine. Drank an absolute ton after finishing, and tried to stretch my glutes which were pretty sore and tight. Other than that it was time to relax after a tough race.


This race awards medals to the top 3 in each AG, and I was 4th – I wanted a medal, and missed out by around a minute. With my swim, I wouldn’t change much, it was pretty good by my standards. The bike was a bit weak, and I should have worked harder to keep the AG guys in my sights after they passed me. I felt I should have pushed harder was on the run. Even though I was tiring towards the end, and HR said I was near my limit, I think I still had a little more to give. Enough to catch third place, I don’t know, but I feel like I could have tried just a bit harder.