Started out good. I tried drafting a few times, but was never able to keep it for very long. Didn't even make it halfway through one loop before i was thinking I shoulda signed up for the Sprint. Coming back to finish the first loop, the sun was directly in my eyes and I had problems sighting. I spent alot of extra time sighting and zig-zagged a bit.

The second loop was pretty uneventful, except that I rounded the buoys pretty wide. My left arm was also a little fatigued or I lost my strok as I'd veer ever so slightly to the left. It wasn't as bad as in previous races, but I certainly swam wider around the entire second lap. Coming back to the finish wasn't much of a problem as there were a good amount of people just in front of me so I just followed.

Better job rounding the buoys.

Loooong run to transition. I really thought I was a little quicker than this, but I'll take it. Overall not too bad, but I didn't have a wetsuit to strip out of.

Fast course. It started out with a bit of a climb, then it's fairly flat and fast. The first two loops didn't have much traffic and I'd pass a few and then get passed by the fast people. I had frozen my Infinit in my small AquaCell and the straw hadn't defrosted. It was the last loop before I got any. I did also have water and some cliff shots stashed just in case, which turns out to be a very smart move.

I was pretty consistent at 16' per lap, with the 3'rd being the fastest, although I'm not sure it was really 6mi per lap. For some reason, though, my HR was really low. It was a good 10+ bpm lower than normal for my effort, but RPE & mph was about right, so I just ignored it.

MPH PR for any distance

Not freeze my nutrition.

Not too good and didn't realize where the T2 exit was, so I wasted some time there. I did go sockless for the run and had my Garmin strap & race number in my hat ready to go.

Immediately when I started running, my left knee was a bit weird, but not really hurting, I pushed on. I was also dealing with pain on the top of each of my shoulders. I kept it a little easy to let it pass. I was still able to maintain a 8:30ish pace, so I was happy. After the first mile, I was feeling better and was able push a little more and still feeling somewhat comfortable. After the 5k turnaround, there were a few hills and they wiped me out. At the turnaround, I grabbed some Gatorade and walked while I drank it. Here I saw Andy (apw0397) and started running. It didn't take more than one minute for him to pass me. I tried to hang on for a bit, but couldn't do it.

I survived the hills going back and made it back to the 5k turnaround. I was feeling good and was passing quite a few, but now there were runners everywhere. I finished strong with my last mile my fastest.

In the last 3/4 mile, I could feel something in my shoe poking my foot. It got increasingly worse towards the finish. Turns out the extra shoelace from my Yankz slid down and was pressing on my foot, leaving a snake-bite type soars. Other than that, I had no problems without socks.

HR remained low (high Z2/low Z3) and I continued to ignore it :). This was still a 10k PR by nearly 2' (tri or open 10k)

Ate some pizza & bananas and drank some water.


This was as good a race I've had.


Great race at a good time in the year. The weather was absolutely perfect.

Overall placing is for Male only as that's how it's done in the results.