The Wave start made things a little easier to manage. I started near the front, but quickly got swam over. I went out really strong but there was no way I would have been able to hold that. by the time I got to the first turn it I was having to tell myself to calm down and get into a groove. got out of the water at 9:30 which was :30 faster than my goal time

start near the back or side of the pack for more room and keep telling myself to calm down for the first 100m or so

Had a great transition. Ran through the kiddie pool to get the sand off my feet, but it was quickly replaced with grass a dirt. Threw down my goggles and cap (no wet suit) and threw on my helmet and ran off. The one problem I had was I was a little wobbly getting my feet into the shoes and I almost crashed into a cone... ALMOST :)

Another point to note here is that the transition entrances/exits were really narrow and my wife tells me there was almost a crash exiting T1 involving a few racers and some miss communication. I, however, was already up the road at this point.

Let myself get out a little further on the course before getting into my shoes.

Had a nice ride. I raced my race and kept the cadence and HR right where they needed to be. I passed one guy in my age group and a bunch of others before I started getting passed by a bunch of people from Wave 2 who were older and much more experienced than I am. I thought at this point I was in third in my AG because of my slow swim and the fact that I thought there were only 4 people in my AG. I spent a lot of time looking at the ages written on peopl's calf's to see how many I passed, and since I only passed one I assumed 4-1=3. That would turn out to be wrong (keep reading) and there were actually 7 people in my AG. Another notable point is that I passed a young kid at the crest of the only hill and immediately heard him frantically shifting gears only to have him fly past me on the downhill. As soon as we hit the flats again he slowed way down and I passed him again no problem

Nothing... Bike was great

Another awesome transition. I think these and the strong bike helped my win my AG. It is at this point I realized a lost a toe nail at some point on the bike. I don't know for sure, but I think getting on the bike I dimpled in the toe of my shoe and it dug into my toe and ripped off my toe nail... but I'm not fully sure.

Went out too fast as usual, but then I settled in. At the turn around I was averaging 7:00/mile but I got passed by the guy I passed earlier on the bike. I thought i was in 4th so I hung with him a while but let him go a bit beucase I knew I was going too strong and wouldn't have much left. I settled back into my goal pace of about 7:30 and then started leap-frogging this guy because he would stop for walk breaks and then run past me again. I started fading between mile 3 and 3.5, but he also took more walk breaks. As we got within the last 1-200 yds he took another walk break and I turned on the jets. As I passed him He started running but I kept the pace strong and accelerated to the finish beating him by :05. I thought I had sprinted my way to the podium... when in reality I had just sprinted my way to an AG win!

Not much. My goal was 30:00 and I did that. I faded at the end, but still was able to have that last final kick. I think in the end my strategy based on the race situation was good and it obviously worked so I'm pleased.

Walked around, hydrated and fueled (Banana and Pizza lol) and then streached a bit after cooling down.


Things controllable on race day... nothing... needed more brick workouts and OWS...


The race was great! Well organized and well staffed. The announcer got confused sometimes, especially at the start, but it all worked out fine. The one thing I would change is to make the exits larger to remove the bottle neck where there is a lot of people exiting at once, especially from T1. Crashes are not fun for anyone. There were massage tents and an Expo advertised, but I saw none of that. But even so, It was a great race and I plan on racing it many more times