Due my ongoing elbow injury I have only been swimming a couple of times a week, and none of it very hard, so I didn't have huge expectations for this swim. As I waded out for the start, I went back and forth on whether I even wanted to start my watch for the swim, or just wait until the run. Since I knew I was going to be abysmally slow, I decided to forego the time as told myself I really would not want to know how badly I did. I lined up wide as I really wanted to stay away from the scrum. The last thing I needed was to take a shot to the elbow. On the upside the elbow was actually feeling pretty good (which means I couldn't feel it all), but I still did not want to lean on it in the swim.

The gun went off and I hit start on my watch out of habit. I angled in to get a better line on the far buoy, but immediately somehow ran in to traffic with guys swimming the wrong line. I moved back out and just went nice and steady away from the crowd. About halfway to the first turn I moved back in to find some feet, and took a soft shot to the goggles, I moved back out, rolled to my back, cleared them quickly, and then once again moved back to the group. I held back and just swam a steady effort. I realized with about 150 meters to go that for the first time in months I didn't even feel my elbow and caught myself daydreaming a little about that as I swam easily along. I suppose that is one of the hazards of swimming easy during a race - ha-ha.

Before I knew it my hands hit the bottom and I snapped out of my reverie. One of the coolest things about this race is that you literally stand up from the water in the transition area. If you don't have a record-breaking transition at this race you will never have one. As I was running for my bike glanced down at my watch, even though I had told myself I wouldn't. I saw 12:20 just tick over. "Oof," I thought. "That is really, really bad!"

Well, I didn't exactly expect a lot, but I also didn't think I would be 40 seconds slower than last year either. I do know that the last time I did this race I was on the verge of hyperventilating when I came out of the water and this time around I was nice and relaxed, so maybe that is the difference 40 seconds makes in 600 meters.

Goggles and cap came off easily, as did the speed suit. "Ha! I've still got it!" I told myself as I grabbed my brand-new-never-used-before helmet. The Kask Bambino is a notoriously tight fit (especially with the visor on), but I had practiced about a billion times and it went on like butter. Left shoe on, right shoe on, and I was running for the mount line.

At the mount line, I hopped on, and made my way through all the sugar-licking that always goes on with dodgy age groupers trying to get their shoes on while riding uphill on the bike. I wound my way quickly through that mess and was clear for the rest of the long, uphill climb out of T1. Out on the road I immediately rode into the back of a small group of guys that were all the way over on the yellow line, but a quick shout from behind got them lined up on the right in short order. Due to the easy swim my HR was relatively low (170-sh) compared to the usual 180's it normally is when I come out of the water on a sprint. This allowed me to really settle in for some work and I committed to the "catch and release" game you are always faced with when starting from the back in the old-man wave.

This is a great, rolling course, no need to come out of aero, and no need to get out of the big chairing, ever. I had decided to ride strong but steady, and just tried to sit on my watts whether I was going up or down. I was riding a good 20 watts higher than the previous year, and my NP was only 4 watts higher than my AP. I felt great, and I knew I was killing the bike. But while I was running in to the back of folks from the prior waves like crazy, I was catching NO ONE from my own age group. Eventually I hit a big empty gap where I couldn't see anyone one up the road, and this went on long enough that I even began to wonder if I made a wrong turn. I quickly put that out of my mind (I knew this course way too well for that) and eventually more riders began to hove into view up the road. I began running in to the back of the 19 and under wave that went off first, and it finally dawned on me that the swim must have been long and I was actually in an OK position (turns out that I actually had the 4th fastest swim in the AG). I made the last turn for the long, fast, downhill roll into T2, and I glanced down at my computer: I was looking at a full minute faster than the previous year, and my legs were feeling great - I was actually excited to run!

Staying in my aerobars, I reached down and slipped out of my shoes maybe a little too early, but with a fast, downhill finish I didn't want to be messing around with my shoes too close to the dismount line. I saw one of my fish-like teammates up the road who is also in my age group and thought "FINALLY!" we still had some distance to go to the dismount line, so I went full-gas. I really wanted to catch him in transition and enjoy a good team dogfight on the run. While I did not see her, off to my right I heard Jennifer shouting Go Rusty! Gooooo Rusty! I smiled, looked up the road to the dismount line and then, no lie and without a single bit of exaggeration, I had the following four thoughts in rapid succession:

1) Where the fuck did my bike go? (Denial)
2) Hands in! Hands in!! (Anger)
3) Well, damn, there goes my visor - all the reviews DID say it pops off too easily... (Depression)
4) Holy shit, when am I ever going to stop SLIDING?????? (Acceptance)

Eventually I came to a stop on my right side, staring across the pavement into the weeds.

"Shit - I have to get out of the road!" I bounced up and darted to the curb. Jennifer was immediately by my side and the first thing she asked was "Are you hurt?!" And looking down at my blood-gushing self I simply responded, "Why yes, I think I am."


I would choose not to crash.

Somehow Jennifer gathered up my bike and all of the other sundry items that I had yard-saled all over the road, and while I was standing there watching blood run all over the place she asked, "Can you walk?" I replied, "Yes," and so we began walking. That is when I realized that I had a couple of good lacerations on my right foot, and I moved over out of the grass and started walking down the edge of the pavement as that felt somewhat less-awful on my feet. It wasn't a long walk to transition, and we made a bee-line to the paramedics. They put me in the back of their truck and chatted me up, mostly to see if I was concussed, but probably also to keep me calm. I put on a happy face and tried to yuk it up with them a bit. By this point I wasn't too worried as I had done my own systems check and had already surmised that I had not broken, separated, or torn anything, so for me thus far it was a win. I was just amazed at how much blood there was everywhere. As I was sitting in the back of the EMT vehicle Jennifer, always in race mode, told me, "Todd just went by - MAN, he put A LOT of time on you in the swim." Ah, unrequited, true love!

While Jennifer answered questions and filled out paperwork with race officials (hey, it actually DOES help to have your emergency contact at the race with you!) the paramedics systematically washed me down from head-to-toe with squirt bottles of saline and wrapped me up in towels the color of tomato soup. Jennifer informed me that they probably used to be white. Again, she is such the sympathetic sweetie!

The paramedics finished patching me up mostly, but left my wrist unbandaged as it continued to bleed a fair amount. It appears that when I pulled my hands back to my body (in order to not inadvertantly break my clavicle or separate my shoulder - lessoned learned the hard way from previous crashes on both counts) I actually landed on the outside of my forearm and wrist and tore them both up fairly well. I always figured the thing about shaving in order to make the cleanup from crashes better was a bunch of baloney, but from the looks of my forearm (which was not shaved) I now think there might just be something to that after all. And I really did not want to see my back, as even the paramedics asked if they could snap a picture or two of it.

Just as the paramedics finished up with me my teammates started coming across the finish line one-by-one, and I went and cheered them in. Jen and I waited for the last teammate to finish and then we headed out to buy every bit of Tegaderm we could find between LaGrange and Atlanta. We had an awesome team showing for this race, and I learned later that afternoon that almost every single member wound up on the podium in their age group. Well, all except me of course - ha-ha! #GoTeamPodium.

The last stop on the way home was by the tri-shop to drop my bike off, which hardly had a scratch on it. It seems what I learned years ago from my motorcycle-riding days holds true for bicycles as well: when a rider clears the bike in a crash, the bike fares much better than the rider. My right shoe and the base bar took the brunt of the impact to the bike. My shoe is toast, but with a little sanding and creative tape-wrapping the base bar is good as new. The rear derailleur needed a little dab of black paint here and there, but heck, it probably needed it anyway.

Well, crashing, of course.

Before we left the race venue Jennifer and I walked back up the course to work through exactly what happened. Jennifer saw the whole thing and while not-so-pleasant for her, it did help a lot in figuring out exactly what went down (besides me, obviously).

Seriously, this was a dumb, dumb, dumb rookie move. I was full-gas with my feet out of my shoes about 200 meters out from T1 and stupid enough to still be in the aerobars instead of up on the basebar. I was looking up the road to see who was rolling in to transition ahead of me, and already thinking about my run when I hit the tiniest little 1" transition in the pavement. The bike got a bit of air, and with no contact points fixed to the bike I got even more. Stupid, stupid mistake. I have been racing plenty long enough to know better. I am genuinely embarrassed that I hit the ground the way I did, and I am just thankful that I didn't endanger any other competitors with such a dumb, completely avoidable crash.

I hit the ground at a Garmin-verified speed of 27.1mph. It felt like I slid for days. I am thinking of tagging it as a Strava segment.

If you are not too squeamish you can scroll down for pics of the REAL damage.

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