First off about the swim, for some reason they gave men 30-39 pink swim caps, I have no idea why but that is what we got.
The swim is my strongest event, even if I do not get to pool that often. I enjoy the open water and the "fighting" for postion. We started and it was a normal start, just trying to find an open place to swim, I started passing the wave ahead before the first turn. I did have a little trouble sighting because of the early morning fog, but just took a few strokes with my head up and out of the water and was able to locate the markers. On the second lap passed many more folks and headed for the beach to go find my bike.
I came out of the water 89/313 men and was pleased so far, but I also knew the big hills where still ahead.

Not much.

Long run and up a flight of stairs to the T1.

???

This course is hilly. Luray is up in the mountains and this is a tough course. I knew coming into to this race I had not biked enough but I felt like I got my butt kicked on the bike. Things started out OK, but it was downhill. I was a little tenative on the big downhills since I took a spill early this year. 35-40 mph down hill and had folks flying past me. I was not confident to be on the areo bars on this hills. Anyway the bike like the swim and run is 2 loops so as you head out you know you got all this twice. At times it seemed to be up hill the whole route, even when it looked flat it was a slight long incline that just was tough on me. I was allready wooped toward the end and then they had one last big old hill for you. I looked down and I was going 7 MPH and it was all I had. I was finally able to pass a couple of people after all the folks I passed/beat on the swim had passed me.
I also got 26.4 on my bike computer.
I lost a lot of time on the bike and trashed my legs because of lack of training, but I was still having fun.


Train. Ride my bike. Train. Not be lazy

Racked the bike got my running shoes off and left.

nada

A hilly run course, but no where as hilly as the bike. It again was 2 laps. I felt good for the first 2 miles and at this point was feeling confident about beating my 2007 time. If I have trained for one part it was the run. As I got about to mile 2.75 I felt a little muscle cramping in my thighs. This I am sure was from the biking. I started back out on the second loop and kinda started to feel good again. I had a little LSU crowd at the turn around cheering me.(Got to love spectators who cheer for "us") The first part of the second loop was good, felt strong and then my legs started getting heavy, very heavy. The up hill sections began to hurt and I had to walk a little up one of the hills because of muscle cramping. At mile 5 I was flirting with not beating my 07 time. I pushed a little bit, but I did not have much left in my legs. I made the last little left and you can see the finish line a few hundred yards away. Well at this point my legs said #$% you, and just cramped up badley. I walked for maybe 5-10 seconds trying to let the cramp lessen so I could run in. I started running and got to the line and beat my time by just seconds.

Train for the bike which in turn may make the run less painful.

Water, food....


My lack of training, but who do I have to blame that on......


Good race. Hard course.