After a couple hundred meters my timing chip came off my leg. This had never happenned to me before so I stopped to ponder the situation long enough to figure out that the chips float. So I took a couple strokes back to get the chip then started the dance to try to get it back onto my ankle securely. The first time I got it on and took a couple strokes to have it fall off again. Then I spent a minute or two trying to tread water with one leg while using both hands and my other leg to get the chip on. Dont try this at home, I swallowed copious amounts of water, lost time, and wasted energy. Nevertheless I got it back on. Later in the swim a little over halfway I got my goggles kicked off. Again this is a first time thing for me, but treading water with two legs is no problem so I fixed the goggles and lost only about 10-15 secs on the incident.

Make sure racing chip is secured around my ankle before every race. This was horribly difficult to put it on in the middle of the lake.

I put socks on and shoes, then run with the bike, so that was fine. I had no problems getting anything on or off.

Nada

Most of the first lap on the bike I was jockeying back and forth with a Hammer rider, an orange shirt guy and a gu guy. They obviously were going at a pace good for them while I was cycling out of my league. I was overconfident in my abilities and although I made it through the bike without any problem it left little energy for my run.

I would focus less on keeping up with people and trying to beat or stay ahead of them. Longer distance races put much more emphasis on racing within your abilities.

I had to go to the bathroom the whole bike and so it made my transition a little stressful having to hold it while putting my running shoes on, then stopping at the porta-potty.

Nada

I clearly went out too hard on the run with miles of 7:47, 8:35, 8:49, 8:38. I then started to have my IT band screaming at me before even starting the second lap. I knew at this point that I had gone out WAAAAY too hard(it was easy at the time) and my focus turned to just finishing the race in a respectable way. Also besides the knee with about 1 mile left I started feeling sick to my stomach. My last few mile times were 11:35, 12:04, 13:02 which is sickening itself, but this is the first time I got sick in a race and I think it was because I was running too hard at the beginning of the run leg.

Drink a little bit less, not much, I think I drank decently. Mostly and obviously I need to not start at a pace I know I cannot maintain. It just was easy at the time, I must have had a lot of adrenaline. Still the plan was to run 9ish minute miles, so why did I start well under that I dont know.

By the time I crossed the finish line I was just trying not to get sick onto or in front of anybody, and save a little face. I was successsful in keeping my nutrition in my stomach. After that I had a bottle of water from the finish, and went to the lake for a cool-off. The lake was very cold, my body very weak and unable to heat itself. I got cold fast and retreated to my towel. Then I sat around for a few minutes, stretched, and got in line for food. I gave my burrito to Brandon becuase they arent that good, and saved the bagel, watermelon, and oranges for myself as well as a pepsi and a recovery drink I had on the way home.


The main limitation was my lack of pacing and overconfidence in the fatigue catching up with me. I just got that race mentality and totally was kidding myself with my paces.


this is a great race. The bike course is a little boring but that is not unusual. They try to keep it relatively flat for the longer distance rather than making us go up Old Stage like in the Boulder Peak