Good solid swim. It's always so hard to get around people when there are soooo many people in the water and it's such a short course. Getting around the first two buoys was a nightmare because it was so crowded, but after that it was fine. Lucky for me the sun went behind a cloud for a little bit while I was swimming back in toward shore, so I could actually see where the finish was.

Nothing. I'm happy with this swim. It was about 7 seconds faster than last year. Not much, but enough to get me under 1:30/100 average pace. :)

Decent T1. Nothing noteworthy other than that for once, I actually remembered to tuck my timing chip under my wetsuit so that it did not get stuck when I was trying to peel off the suit. Go me! After getting the suit off, I started to put one sock on and then quickly thought the better of it and decided to go without socks. Not worth the time to try to get them on wet feet for a sprint.

Not bother with the socks at all. It only cost me a second or two though.

Probably my best bike in a race so far. In the last four years of this course, this is the first time I've finished the bike in under 45 minutes, which was my goal. Yippee!

About ten minutes into the bike I had this realization that, "hey, I feel pretty good right now. I could have a good day if I keep it together." So I decided to just go hard and see how well I could do. I kept finding carrots on the course and passed all of them. I passed way, way more people than I usually do, but that might be more a function of the number of people in the race. It sure was a good mental boost though, so I'll take it. :)

This year I did much better at using the smaller chain ring on the hills. For whatever reason, I've always been hesitant to use it in the past, but today I used it a couple times and my legs thanked me for it.

The other thing I did better this year was not drinking too much on the bike. I tend to over hydrate during the bike and then end up with a sloshy stomach for the run. So after drinking as normal for the first half of the bike, I took only a few small sips during the second half.

Not very much, really. I decdied to take a hammer gel from the aid station, which I probably should have skipped since it slowed me down a bit and I probably didn't really need it. Another issue was that I didn't shift back to the big ring soon enough after one of the longer hills (sort of forgot I was using the small ring I guess), but otherwise this was a very strong ride for me. I'm fairly certain this is my best average pace in a race but would have to double check to be sure.

I wish this would've been a bit faster, but since I was on the lower deck of the T area this year, I think that explains part of the 20 added seconds from last year. I took my time getting down that grassy hill rather than risking a wipe out. Also, I don't have speed laces in my new shoes yet, so that surely added a few ticks as well.

Speed laces for sure.

Good run. I did indeed string together three 9:35 miles (which I was wondering if I could do after running one mile at that pace on Saturday). As usual I got passed by a ton of women in my age group on the run, but I tried not to let it get me down. I picked one of them as my person to catch before the end of the race, and I did get her about a half mile from the finish, so I was glad about that. No IT band issues at all--hurrah!

Push harder in the middle. I get all distracted watching the long course bikers coming in and my mind tends to wander a bit.

Walked around, drank two bottles of water, waited for my husband to finish (he started three waves after me). I actually stretched for once! A miracle!

We ate and waited for the awards to start. It was nice to sit and chat with Bryan and Kelly, and Bridget (freckleface) and Scott. And Bridget scored an award--nice!


As always, my weight. What else is new?


This was a PR for me by exactly one minute. Leave it to me to be somewhat disappointed with a PR, though. (I'm such a dork.) I was all excited about my time until I got home and looked at my report from last year. I ran 9:12 miles last year, but 9:35s today. Rats. I still got the PR because my bike was faster, but I was bummed about the run pace. I said in my blog on Saturday that I thought my 9:35 mile might have been the fastest I had ever run a mile, but apparently I was totally forgetting about this race last year and the 9:12s. I'm still happy with the PR, of course, I just wish I could have repeated the faster run afte this year's faster bike. Oh well. Next year! :)

Other quick notes:

-The lady they introduced in the pre-race meeting that was hit by a car on her bike two weeks ago--She's also from Hastings and I swim with her all the time at the middle school. I had no idea she had been hit though! I went to talk with her a bit and luckily she's doing very well.

-I was running right alongside Curt Wood when he went down right before the finish. We were probably about 15 yards or so short of the finish when he did the whole bonked/dehydrated/complete-rubber-legs-a-la-Julie-Moss crumble. I wanted to help him up, but knew I couldn't without penalizing him, so I kept going. I felt bad though. And then I was right by the medical tent as they worked on him after the finish. His respiration rate was absolutely through the roof, and I'm sure his HR must have been too. His eyes keep rolling back in his head, and they were putting cold towels all over him while he lay on the ground. It was quite unsettling to watch. I was glad to see him sitting up and talking when they wheeled him out on the stretcher later.

-And finally, for the first time ever, I beat my husband in a race. By about 35 seconds. :) Not that I'm gloating or anything. :) The closest I had ever come before was in his very first race (on this course) back in 2005 when he beat me by 8 seconds. Since then his margin of victory has always been bigger until today. Granted, he hasn't trained much, but he never usually does, so that wasn't a big difference from previous years. He said the run felt much more painful than usual for him today, so I think that was where he lost some time.

Anyway, the folks in Buffalo put on another great event, as usual. This is such a well put together race--organized, lots of volunteers, great race shirt, plenty of port-a-johns, etc. Great way to start off the year!