Started off about 5 off the start, which was TOTALLY stupid since I let Scott and Jeff both get away from me while I had to run over other people.

Caught up to Jeff pretty quick and he drafted off me to the first two buoys, but then I pulled away. Scott was WAY out in front (swam an 18:15!!) and I knew I should have been there with him. It's definitely not outside my ability to stay with him since I used to swim against him, I just was an idiot and started out too easy.

Anyways, me and Jeff came out with the same time as he caught up to me while running over the timing mat! LAME!

Not a great swim, 20:23 is not fast for me, and I was hoping to stay with Scott.

Start at the VERY front

Push the first 300 more so I would have been able to keep an eye on Scotty

T1 included in Bike time

Wetsuit got stuck on the chip for about a second. Had to put all my wetsuit and towel stuff in the orange garbage bag.

Buy garden shears and cut my stupid wetsuit off? :P

So I came out of T1 in 3rd, since Jeff races ITU and has AMAZINGLY fast transitions.

Felt SUPER strong out of T1 and just gunned it on the downhill at about 60km/h. With no one anywhere in sight behind me, and holding a constant 25 km/h on the uphill, I was on top of the world! Strongest I'd ever felt on a bike in my life!

Then... BANG...sssssss

F*&%!!!!! A bloody flat. Ok, no problem. Fixed it up in about 3 minutes. 6 guys passed me, so I promptly destroyed 4 of them on the uphill. On the ascent/flats I was head to head with this one guy for the whole stretch until the uphill where I pulled ahead.

Then.. BANG...ssssss....

NOT AGAIN! I was swearing my brains out at this point. Didn't have another spare tube. Dropped my bike in the ditch and got ready to give up. Spent about 5 minutes throwing a MASSIVE hissy fit. Then this SUPER SUPER SUPER nice woman gave me one of her spare tubes (she'd gotten two flats last year). Took me about 2 min. to calm down and about 5 to change the tube. Count it, 12 minutes so far. I get on my bike happy as a clam, and then CLANK CLANK CLANK CLANK

Suddenly my cranks stop moving altogether. Uh oh. Swearing commences. I look down... The chain had completely wrapped itself around the crank, and had begun folding up near the rear deraileur. Holy $hit I thought, this isn't my day. I spent about 15 minutes trying to fix the bloody thing, until it finally gave and I straightened the chain out. God I hate my effing bike.

Got back on and HAMMERED the next lap and a half. Passed close to 50 people I'm guessing. Was feeling super stiff and crampy when I first got back on the bike though, which will come into play later.

Got into T2, saw Carolyn who was freaking out since she hadn't seen me or heard anything about a crash AT ALL. Calmed her down and went out for my run.

Buy a new bike.
I hate mine.
Seriously.

Included in Run time

Wear socks..
You'll see

So I was basically infuriated by my once again $HITTY bike luck.

The whole first 5km was out of pure unadultered rage. My first 5km split?
17:55

Sweet, I should be under 40, I thought. So I get to the 7km mark and my Hamstring COMPLETELY seizes up. I had taken a gel at the 2 km mark with some water, but apparently that wasn't enough to flush out my rage-induced-post-biking-leg-stiffness. The aid station guys were SUPER funny and were pretending to give me Hamstring CPR and were basically dumping Gatorade down my throat. I walked it out for about 3 minutes and finally it disappeared. Finally got back to running and made a point to pass EVERYONE who passed me while I stopped.

At km 9 I felt my feet getting hot on the inside part of both feet. Uh oh, blisters. They were MASSIVE, about 3 cm long on each foot and absolutely filled with fluid. Definitely slowed me down on the last km. I guess I can thank brand new shoes for that!

Regardless, I must have passed at least 100+ people since I was BOOKING it down those trails. Mostly out of anger and rage!

Got to the finish a little pissed off, and COMPLETELY covered in grease. Can't wait to see the race photos that show me with bike grease ALL OVER my face/body!

Wear socks
Not be so rage-filled
Tone down the rage
GRARRARRARARRARRR

Ate 4 banana halfs, drank some water/G-ade
Got asked about 7 billion times why I had so much bike grease on me!


Bike death
Blister Death
Rage Death

Overall racing DEATH


I LOVED the course, race, environment!

The announcer could have been better, but I will DEFINITELY be back!!!