Over 2 minutes slower than last year :( . Besides the fact that my sighting had me all over the course, like the trip to the pier, down to the yacht club, over to the boat house for a blue whale, this swim was just not one of my better performances. It was cold and I just couldn't get moving. I have no one to blame it on besides me Since LP I just haven't made it to swimming like I should.

Ummmm, maybe actually swim once in a while? Plus I stopped briefly to give Connie a kiss which made Marmadaddy jealous so I had to blow him one on the way by. Probably lost a second doing this which means absolutely nothing. :)

Not bad, should have been faster but I wanted to dry off some to keep from freezing on the bike.

Practice

I imediately lost some time as I didn't see the mount line and had to dismount and then re-mount. This allowed some to get ahead of me and along lakeshore drive they had us in narrow lanes that made passing difficult at best. I managed to get past a few but also got stuck some until the road opened up.
I thought I was pushing comfortably hard for most of the bike. My goal today was to get solidly in the 19 mph as I thought this was possible on this course after riding it a couple of times the last month. I also felt I could do this and still have some left for the run. I think besides the double mount at the beginning, I lost this oportunity in 2 spots. Climbing the hill out of Rushville and in the narrow lanes both into and out of transition. I also think the fact that my swimming is slow gives me a false sense of accomplishment as I rarely get passed on the bike and pretty steadily passed people.
But on the bright side, my time was better than last years and although I am somewhat impatient and want to see imediate improvements, I did do better than last year.

One thing that is kind of bad is the traffic on some of the bike route. Two years in a row I have experienced a lunatic pulling a trailer, swerving in and out of the bikes, blowing his horn and generally making an ass of himself. This year it was a pickup pulling a camper. I guess the signs at the intersection stating there was a race in progress and the sherriff cars at all turns and major intersections must have been missed by this mental midget!

I beleive if I really want to get to the next level on the bike I am going to have to get about 30 pounds lighter give or take. The 10 pounds I have put on since Lake Placid plus another 15 to 20. I can probably accomplish the mid 19's at this weight and some more saddle time, but to break 20 I don't think so.

I sure don't know where this time came from. I felt it was slower than T1. Looking at my run time versus what I showed on the Garmin for the run I am wondering if this is accurate? I had to sit down and put socks on because I didn't where them on the bike.

Learn to run without socks. Don't know that I can't, but I have never tried.

After the first mile or so the legs started to get into the groove. I was shooting for a 50 - 51 minute 10K which would have put me into PR territory. I realized about the 3 mile mark that I would be off this so I pushed the pace a bit harder which I thought would be good enough. I dropped it from 8:24 mile/min to 8:19. When the results were posted I was disappointed to see the 54:06 as I had it at 52:36 and I am confident that I pushed the buttons as I crossed the mat. I also need to work on my math skills as I didn't pick up the pace enough to over come the start.

In this race particularly I would have pushed harder on the first lap rather than worrying about having enough in the tank to finish strong. Overall I just need to keep working at getting miles in training. And winning the tiara (weight loss challenge) wouldn't hurt my running speed either :) !

Walked around and chatted with some of the other racers and BT folks. Found a chicken sandwhich and a lemonade and sat on the rocks by the lake and watched the kids swim.


I kind of got into a funk after Lake Placid that took me until about a week ago to escape from. I had hoped to recover from that race and use the fitness I gained training to add some speed work and do well here. I have found reading other forums here that I am not alone in that regard and it is not uncommon after a big race to have a long mental recovery. Add that to some unexpected work issues that cut into my training time and the last six weeks have not been as productive training wise as it could have been.


After reading through this it may sound like I had a negative experience in this race. I am not overly pleased with my results, but I did have a great time. And it is always fun to hang out with some great people, which this race seems to attract!

The people that put this race on have done a nice job with this race. Even adding the extra participants this year didn't affect there ability to put together a great race on time!