My swim went okay. Regardless of how far I swim or whether I wear a wetsuit or not, I never seem to do better than 2:00 minutes per 100 meters. This swim was no exception. I didn't go out hard and I tried to stay even in my tempo. All in all, I think I did a pretty good job. I never had to worry about getting too tired and my stroke was even. The only trouble I had was running into the 40-44 women who started ahead of us. I had my stroke broken up a few times by almost running into some of the stragglers from that group. Still, I had a decent swim for me, and was in the top 10 in my age group coming out of the water.

As always, I need to swim more. This was my first swim since CapTex a month ago.

This was a good T-1 for me. I had the fastest time in the age group by a good 12 seconds. I passed at least 3 guys in transition, so when I hit the bike, I was in 5th place in the age group, although I didn't know it at the time.

Nothing.

Overall, not a bad bike segment for me, considering my complete and utter lack of any training since CapTex. I "tied" the second place finisher for fastest split in our age group. Actually, he beat me by 6 seconds, but our per mile averages were both 22.6 mph.

The course was mostly rolling hills. It started great, though, with a nice quarter mile downhill. It was VERY conducive to starting with the shoes on the bike because you didn't have to pedal much with feet on top of shoes in order to get some speed up. I got up to 25 mph on the initial downhill and then quickly slipped my feet in the shoes . . . no problems.

For most of the bike leg, I just tried to make sure I wasn't blowing myself up. I didn't bring any nutrition (gels or food) and only about 10 oz. of Gatorade X-Factor. On these short sprints, there just doesn't seem to be a need to hydrate so much. Unfortunately, the day heated up quickly, and I found myself thirsty before I had expected to be. In retrospect, I should have brought a full bottle, but such is life.

I knew I'd started the bike in the top 10 in my AG, but I didn't know how high, so my strategy for the bike was to stay aero, keep a high cadence, and just try to pick off as many guys as I could without blowing up. I know I passed at least 3 guys in my AG early on the bike. Considering how little training I'd done, I was pleased when about a third of the way through, I caught site of the guy I was looking for . . . yes, you Jamie! I made him my rabbit and started trying to reel him in. It was a seesaw game for a while, but by about the 9-mile mark, I passed him. Little did I know that at that point, I was in first place in the AG. I tried to pick it up a bit because I knew Jamie would run me down if I didn't get a sizeable lead on the bike. In the back of my head, I knew I didn't have enough road left to increase my lead as much as I needed, but that didn't stop me from trying!

There is a section on the bike course that put us on the access road to one of those new toll roads in Austin. I think it was SH-130. That was the hardest part of the course, I thought, because it was a slight false flat with a bit of a headwind. I had to struggle to maintain 20 mph, and it was a good long stretch of road. By the time I turned off onto Pfluger Lane for the home stretch, I knew I'd blown myself up a bit more than I'd intended. My lack of training was probably going to hurt me on the run.

I cruised into T-2 in first place and had a great rolling dismount.


In retrospect, not much. My ability to pace myself was way off since I hadn't been able to ride as much as I wanted. In a perfect world, I would have had a good amount of riding and running in the months leading up to the race, but that was something that just wasn't going to happen this year.

I had a pretty good T-2 as well. I didn't know I was in first place, but I still moved pretty fast. After dismount, I ran the bike in, racked it, and was into my shoes and gone in 44 seconds, good for 2nd in the AG (darn you, Jamie!)

Not a thing.

This is the tired old refrain for me . . . "it all comes down to my poor run training." In fairness, this was not a "poor" run, really, especially given my lack of run training over the last few months, and especially since I was pretty much unable to train at all in the 3 weeks leading up to the race.

Just before Mile 1, Jamie passed me back. I was disappointed it happened so quickly, but I knew it was coming. About 40 seconds later, another guy from the AG passed me. Over the course of the next 1 1/2 miles, I got passed by 3 more guys from my AG. It was frustrating because I didn't feel THAT bad, I just couldn't get my legs to move faster. I definitely pushed too hard on the bike . . . my sense of pacing was certainly off due to the training hiatus. Additionally, the heat was a factor. It was barely 9:30 AM when I started the run, but the humidity was up and it was already in the 90's. I was very glad to finally hit the finish line.

Again, given the "life developments" that have limited my training, not much. I probably could have found more time to run, but those who know me know that it takes a lot to motivate me to go out of my way to train the run.

Just caught my breath and tried to rehydrate. Spent a bit of time chatting with Jamie and Todde speculating about the finishing results. I did get a chance to meet at least one other BTer.


Lack of training, pure and simple. I still think Jamie would have run me down even if I was in my best shape, but I think I might have been able to hold off at least a couple of the others.


This was a very good race, especially considering that it's only in its second year. They had a lot of sponsors who provided lots of amenities. As far as sprints go, I'll try to make this a regular event for me.