Started out fairly easy until I got into a groove. Had a couple people swimming off course that cut me off, but nothing too bad. Couldn't find any feet to draft off of. Rounding the 1st turn buoy was great. Last year I was slower and in a much larger group rounding buoy's. This year was far easier in that regard. Never found any feet to draft the whole swim. Believe me I was looking! Rounded the last turn bouy and set a hard pace til my hands hit bottom. Stood up and took off hard up the stairs and into T1.

PR by 3 minutes over last year! Let's see if I can do that again in '09!

I was 103 out of 815 total swimmers including teams.

I've got to keep working on getting my feet into my shoes when I jump onto the bike. I'm still pretty bad at it.


My T1 time was one of the fastest of the day.

Nothing.

This is one of the most difficult Oly bike courses you'll find anywhere. Tons of climbing, followed by serious rolling hills. Two different turnarounds and lots of technical cornering. On top of it all the course was very wet.
Shortly after the start you make several tight corners going out of Cd'A and I nearly wrecked about 3 times. Found out later several people did wreck in those corners.
Made it out to Lake Drive and played cat & mouse w/ two guys on tri bikes. They both pulled away from me on the first big climb.
As soon as I started climbing I knew I wasn't feeling it. My legs felt like stumps. Cycling is usually my strongest event by far, but today I struggled.
Did o.k. on the long climb up Yellowstone Trail and just kept the hammer down as hard as I could through the rest of the ride.
I did see several crashes in the wet conditions and had to be very cautious in the corners and descents. I was watching my clock and wasn't happy when I came into T2.
Found out later that even the pro's had "poor" bike splits compared to last year.

Not really sure. Sleep more?

Ended up 36 out of 804 total cyclists including teams/duathletes.

Set my new fastest max speed today......hit 50.8 mph.

T2 was very muddy and slippery, but all in all it went well.

I took the time to put socks on this time, which I've never done before. Lost a few seconds, but kept the blisters away.

Nothing.

Came out of T2 feeling good. Pushed fairly hard the first mile without going overboard and was pleased to feel like my lack of legs on the bike had showed up for the run. 1st mile split was 6:52. I decided to try to hang on to that pace through the first 4 miles and see what I had left at the end. Mile 2 split was 6:48, 3 was 6:47 and 4 was 6:54. I was happy to see the consistency and felt good and picked it up another notch for the last two miles. There were no more mile markers, which I thought was odd.
Not sure if markers were off a bit or what, but my final split didn't jive w/ my splits on my watch.
There was one guy up ahead of me by about 200 yds coming into the last 1/2 mile and he became my rabbit to chase. Turned out he wasn't much of a rabbit cause it only took me about 1/4 mile to pass him. Unfortunately, he wasn't in my AG. Came through the finish line feeling strong, yet tired. I don't feel like I left a lot behind today and that's a good feeling to have at the end.

Nothing.

Ended up 68 out of 796 runners including teams/duathletes.

Walked over and congratulated a buddy of mine who beat me by 4 minutes. He's 26 yrs old, 6'8" tall and getting married this week. He ran a sub 40 10k at the end and is a looonnnngggg fast swimmer!
Ate some watermelon and drank some water and walked back up the course a bit and watched for Stan.

Stan ripped off a PR as well and picked up a 2nd place AG award in the process. Would've been 1st if he hadn't got the snot kicked out of him during the swim!


Rain on the bike course was one equation, lack of sleep another. Other than maybe trying to follow a training plan and start doing some focused workouts, I think it went pretty well.

My time was a PR over last year and last year the bike course was shortened due to road construction by about 4 minutes.


Excellent race, well organized and USAT sanctioned as of 2008. Come prepared to climb hills on the bike!