Felt OK to start, then my left arm started to cramp up on me. I guess I overcompensated because I was going left the whole time. At one point I was easily 100m left of the buoy. At one point I looked up to sight and I was almost in the reeds. Guess that's why I never got to draft off of anybody the first loop.

Second loop was a little better. Kept a good rhythm and had better lines.

Better sighting and drafting.

Not Rick Roll myself. I had "Never gonna give you up" stuck in my head the whole swim. Maybe that was my problem.

Stonebridge is not the place for a fast T1. You have to run up a hill, down the other side, and between the tennis courts to get there. Still, I did ok.

Dave gave me a good tip on getting out of my wetsuit solo. That helped a bunch. Joker came right off. Sweet.

Otherwise, a pretty standard transition for me.

Take off wetsuit at the top of the hill and slide down Clark Griswald style. "Later dudes."

Felt decent from the start. Attacked the hill the 1st and 4th loop, spun the 2nd and 3rd. Not a lot of people to draft the first loop, but after the rest of the Oly waves and the Sprint folks got out there I was doing lots of legal drafting.

Looking at my average HR, I didn't hit this as hard as I should have (TWSS). I think I just hit the hills so hard I had to recover a lot. More importantly, I couldn't get a good tune in my head. There was nothing happening in my brain other than telling my legs to keep pedaling. How boring.

Push harder, especially on the backside. Felt like I just had no more to give on the downhills. Probably could have gotten another .5 in there somewhere and been a minute faster.

Very smooth. No hiccups with socks or shoes. Almost like I had done this before.

Same story, different race...the whole riding on top of shoes and jumping off thing. Something for next year...or next race.

From experience I knew the first mile would hurt. Uphill pretty much the whole way, so I kept my steps short and fast. Passed 10 people the first mile. That hurt, but I knew if I was hurting, everyone else was as well. Kept my spirits up by having Shiny Happy People in my head. It worked wonders mentally. C'mon, tell me that song doesn't make you smile. I'm a psycho, I know. But it works.

The second mile I was able to relax and run fairly smoothly. No tunnels here, and fairly downhill. 6 more down.

Now I was just left with Oly runners, so less folks to catch. Less folks to catch, less motivation. Less motivation, less speed. Started feeling it at the turnaround. Saw Chris on his way back and had a nice "That's what she said" after passing him.

Ran the last 2 1/2 with another runner. We talked a bit here and there and used each other for motivation. That was good for me because I was wearing down. Passed 5 in mile 4.

Mile 5 was just the opposite of mile 2 - uphill. Pace slowed a bit more, but as we got to the sprint turnaround we sped up again. Lost count of people here, but it was a bunch. Saw Shannon about 30 seconds after we passed the turnaround. Looks like I was going to win the bet (finishing the Oly before she finished the Sprint). Ding. Woo.

OK, last mile. Let's go. More cowbell. We pushed it, and it hurt. Passed people like crazy. Felt bad for the folks who were just heading out. Saw Sean on his way to his first Oly finish and yelled something moderately inspirational. Couldn't tell you what it was. Something important I'm sure.

Kept cranking to the finish and heard somebody yelling at me. It was Brigid, who teaches our Core class on Wednesday. That made me feel famous as I crossed the line. Immediately felt my left calf seize up when I stopped. Ouch. But I was done. Boom. Where's my cheeseburger?

Nothing. I ran on the verge of throwing up the whole time but never lost it. I ran hard but didn't take it so seriously that it wasn't fun. Still talked, yelled, or waved to anybody I knew and even some I didn't.

Set a 10K PR by over 4 minutes. I crushed the course. Got home and saw 4th overall (not counting the Open Wave studs). Word.

Stretching and walking. 2 bottles of water. Flip flops and t-shirt. Pizza. More water.


Sighting and drafting on swim. No complaints on run or bike.


Stonebridge is a great venue for a race. Good place to swim and a challenging bike and run course. And having the open wave is good when you are an age grouper like me. Good way to pick up cheap awards.