Waves were mainly separated by 8 minutes, which allowed you a lot of time to get out there to the start line and relax a bit, or swim a bit. I had trouble finding someone to draft. There were people cutting back and forth in front of me, another guy pushing me off course, and lastly, a guy who would get ahead of me, then stop, then get ahead of me, then stop. Pretty annoying. I must've purposely swam over someone's legs 4-5 times. Might have been the same guy, crisscrossing me. :-)

My previous swim for this race was in the 32s so I am pretty happy with this time. Buoys were really big and easy to see.

Not sure if I could've, but it would've been nice to find a better draft

Pretty decent transition. Got the cap and goggles off quickly, wetsuit wasn't a problem. Put socks, the helmet and glasses on and off I went. Shoes were already on the bike. The transition area was wet and a bit muddy but that did not cause issues with running around in socks at all.

Gotta stop getting into conversations at the transitions. I didn't stay around very long but it's got to slow you up a bit.

We had a shower come through as our age group headed off, which nicely wet the course, and pelted out faces a tiny bit. Really didn't affect how you felt, but it made me weary of going downhill at a high rate. It wasn't really that windy, but sometimes you would get a gust that would scare you with the wet roads. I may have had 3 times where I thought I might lose control. Otherwise I think I rode ok. I have trouble motivating myself to ride fast, and with all the different age groups and waves being out on the course, just makes it worse. You naturally tend to think you are at an ok rate of speed because others around you are going that speed, but really they are the slower people in an early wave start. But, really, I didn't ride badly at all. Would be nice to see what I can do in dry conditions.

Ride downhill faster if I could, but I'm not yet willing to die or injure myself for an oly race. :-)

I try to think through my transition while ending the bike, but obviously I did not think about what to do once I got my shoes on, because I started running out the bike exit. Doh! Stupid, stupid. At least I didn't go too far.

That's kind of funny, running is my bread and butter but my worst ranking of the race. Kind of shows that I have progressed well, I will take that for sure. My previous PR pace for this race was 8:21 and I really doubted I could do that again, as I think my running isn't where it was back then. But each mile was ticking off way under 8:21. Til the big hills anyway. But the last 2 miles are really fast.

Can't really say I would. If it was important, I could've pushed it harder, but it's not. :-)

Felt pretty good, like I didn't even have a workout, except for some knee swelling. I should've stretched some but I really didn't do much except watch my friends all come in.


Rain! Wet! But the temp was comfortable so there's a trade-off there. Didn't really taper for this race either, still focused on bigger races.

That's funny, I have 2:40:54 on my watch but the final results says 2:40:56.


Chrissie Wellington was putting medals on finishers after she settled down. Where else do you get that kind of thing? As far as food goes, it's just some cold (intentionally) pasta, cookies, and bananas. Not what I would want but not horrible either. The volunteers are wonderful, the bike course support is really good. The course is a challenge but not so much that beginners can't do it. It draws pros, as well as a lot of beginners. It's a great community of racers, what's not to like?