Purposely ran slower than I could have in order to ease into the race. The official time (16:25) included the transition 1 time which I estimate to be 1 minute.

Train more over the winter.

I screwed up getting on the bike. The area to do this was uphill so you couldn't coast very easily while clipping into the pedals. My pedals don't right themselves well so I usually have to orient them with my foot to clip in. It took three tries. Normal is one or two tries.


Drink a bit more in T1 to take some presure off of drinking while on the bike.

Again. The officail time was 41:04 (21.9MPH, which included T2).

I am a bit disappointed. I really thought I was going much faster than this. At the end of the race, I knew my total time, but figured the final 5K run was slow and my bike was fast. I guess a lost 5-10 seconds when I screwed up getting clipped in to my pedals at the start. I estimate my T2 time to be 75 seconds. I was no where near to the class of the top performers (my offical speed of 21.9MPH compares to 23MPH to 25MPH for the top 7 riders) . I really thought I was riding near or at their speed. I was blowing by the folks I past and often cruising between 21MPH and 26MPH. Those guys most have spent most of the ride at 23MPH to 28MPH. After the race I really did think I might have had a top 3 bike time. I thought I was gaining on the leaders and it turns out they were pulling away from me at a good clip.

I did OK. I can't really figure why I am disappointed. I also rode my old road bike. Hopefully I'll pick up some MPH when I switch to the fancy tri-bike and add an aero helmet.

This was also my first ride (other than trainer time) since my Oct 2007 duathlon.

No official time is available. T2 is officially included in the ride time (which I removed to show 39:49, 41:04 with T2 was official split). I rode hard and skipped drinking some in favor of posting a good bike time and then taking more time in T2. My T2 time could have been 75 seconds or worse. I had a lot of trouble slipping into my laced shoes. My calves kept cramping as a contorted my feet to get into the shoes. I would repeatedly stop and stretch them out and try again. I also took time to down 20 ounces of fluids. At 75 seconds, my bike time moves up past my goal of 22.5MPH, but then so does everyone elses. Those leaders would all move from 23MPH-25MPH to 24MPH-26MPH. I might gain on them some though since I purposely took extra time in T2. But not enough gain to be in there class.

Need to get shoes that can more easily be slipped on and off.

I knew my run was slow. All my runs are slow. But I knew it was not as slow as usual. In fact, 23:37 nearly equaled my first individual 5K of the year (23:30 on 3/22). It is my third fastest and clearly the fasted yet within a duathlon event. My old record was 24:09 (first 5K of Oct 2007 race, my second duathlon). My runs are slow, but steadily improving.

I ran steady again. I did not try to push it. As the run went on the breathing increased and by the end of the run I was pretty beat.

Train more over the winter.

Nadda. Stretched some of course.


Each race has been much faster than the previous.


I feel a bit disappointed in the bike. If the event provided transition times I think I'd be real happy with my speed, but unhappy that I am not in the class with the leaders. More about the leaders:

I looked them up in the 2007 USAT rankings. The top 4 finishers average 90.9 USAT ranking points! 8 of the top 11 were listed by USAT, and those 8 averaged 88.1! So, I did not do too bad. I calculated a par time based on everyone I found listed. When I tossed out the top and bottom 20% (like USAT does) I calculate my USAT points to be about 76.9. So that is not too bad. I still have 5 minutes to easily cut from my time as my conditioning improves (it will be tough to get all those 5 minutes this year, but we'll see). I might be 12-36 months away from getting into the class of the leaders (that requires dropping more than 10 minutes).

I also won my age group, but 5 men beat me who were older, and one lady beat me. So I feel like I was 7th even thought my plaque says 1st. (fun for the boys though to see that daddy won!)

Almost forgot. My wife took some pictures. I'll get them posted tonight.