Felt good on the initial run - this was the maiden run in my $40 Saucony's I found on the closeout rack at the Stride Rite store while shopping for the kid's shoes - Seeing as I haven't run but about 6 or 7 miles this year, I'm pretty happy with it.

Only problem...., within 1/2 mile my heart rate monitor had become a waist rate monitor

adjust strap on HRM or just go without; I still don't know what my "zones" are anyway....

Decent enough transition for me. Pulled out the waist-bound HRM, slapped on the shoes, ripped open a Clif shot & took 1 gulp (it was frozen thick) & a swig of gatorade

Learn the tricks to speed up transition

Started out decent, surprisingly not as cold as I was expecting, except for my left fingers for some strange reason. I loaned mom23 my running gloves since it was so cold and so I used the built in hand covers on my base layer shirt for cover (but had no thumbs). We left our aero tanks back at the house in Allen (currently living in corporate housing while we relocate) so we had to make due with water bottles - I think neither one of us drank very much on the ride. The course had some fair hills and a little chip seal that was pretty rough. Didn't do much passing, but got passed by a lot of the short-course speedsters. Lack of saddle time started to get to me on the last 3 miles. Course was a little long (bike computer read 11.09 miles/33:17/20.1)

Have/use the profile tank; more t.i.t.s.

A couple of sharp turns with the bike back into transition. Felt very stiff running with the bike. Couldn't get bent over to do my shoes, so I had to kneel down. Tried another shot of Clif, but it was even more frozen and had a hard time swallowing it (grabbed some water outside of transition to wash it down)

Achieve some semblence of flexibility...

Aside from the usual stiffness coming off the bike, I got up to stride again better than I was expecting. Held a pretty steady pace throughout. Gave mom23 a high five when we met on the course & finished up stronger than I expected.

train more, run faster, drink some more water

Grabbed a bottle of water & went up the course to yell for mom23. Grabbed our goodies & milled around eating fruit & BBQ (Salt Lick BBQ!) After mom23 finished we layered back up & checked the preliminary results to find out we both had gotten some AG hardware (She 1st, me 2nd). This was a shocker for both of us (especially me). Talked with Dave Young a bit, got yelled at by the transition lady for lingering in transition area too long, & ate some more BBQ. Then picked up our AG award (an imprinted coffee mug), loaded the gear, grabbed a Starbucks & headed back to our corporate housing.


Lack of training, cold weather, missing key gear components, slow transitions, I could go on.


Good challenge for me personally. I needed something to spark the fire again (thanks mom23...!)