Not a bad swim. Wetsuits were not allowed (too warm, but I haven’t tried mine out yet anyway, so I didn’t mind), but I felt pretty good on the swim. As usual, my breathing during the race and my breathing during training were totally different. I breathe hypoxic during training (regulated, one breath every third stroke so it’s alternating sides), but every stroke during a race. It’s faster, but it does elevate the HR slightly. No worries on this one, as it was a short swim. The start was okay; I didn’t get kicked too badly and quickly made it out of the pack. The worst part was the sea-grass or lake grass in this case. There were times when you felt as if you were swimming through a bunch of hair. Yes – naaaassstyyyy. It felt disgusting. Especially at the end when the bottom was all churned up. I sure as hell didn’t finish first in the swim (I’m used to that – it’s my slowest event), but I was right about in the middle. I beat a lot of folks.

My strongest event. I usually don’t get passed too much on this, but today there were some very fast riders out there. The good thing is that most of the people who passed me, I ended up overtaking again at some point. Good route though, not very hilly – just a couple of rollers. The wind wasn’t bad even when it was in our face. I was happy with this ride. My legs felt a little tired at first for some reason and I was concerned about my speed. Once I rode for about two miles though, I started to get my power back and that’s when I started smokin’ some ass!

Great course! It basically went all the way around the lake in which we swam and was shaded the whole way on a packed dirt trail. I passed and was passed, but I’m used to that on the runs. This is my middle ground event, so as long as I hold my own I’m pretty happy. And I thought my pace was pretty good.

Great race overall. The race director kept referring to how great a field we had today. I’m not sure if he was being serious, or just trying to make everyone feel better if they didn’t finish where they’d hoped. Either way, I was surprised at how well I did!

I was 34th overall (out of about 160, I’m waiting for the “official” results), and placed 3rd in my age group (Male, 30-34)!! For the first race in 707 days, I was very happy. I find this pretty significant because the toughest age groups for men are 30-34 and 35-39 (the latter being the toughest). Just fyi - for women it's late 30's to early 40's that have the best endurance athletes. You might think it's the young kids in their 20's, but it takes a long time to build the endurance necessary to maintain speed in a triathlon. Now I feel even better!

Overall, great way to get back on the racing “horse.” The transitions went well; I don’t feel like I lost hardly any time. Granted, I didn’t have a wetsuit to contend with, but we’ll tackle that at the next race! I’m very happy with this performance and hope that the rest of the season only gets better!