I have had a lot of problem with my wetsuit pulling on my shoulders and just tiring me out too quickly on the swim, tried to rent a desoto from wetsuitrental.com but they sent me a Synergy hybrid which is their top of the line suit but it still caused me to tire out in the pool when I tried it. I brought both suits up to see which was the lesser of 2 evils and ended up wearing the Synergy.

When I went for my practice swim I tried something different and stopped my pull about 3/4 of the way instead of taking it all the way to my hip and this really seemed to help, not quite as fast as I can go but more important to finish than go fast right now.

A bit of history on my first 2 OWS races.

Culpepper 750M 28:00 minutes or so, held on to every boat on the course, tried to quit but no one saw my hand go up. Dead the rest of the race.

Miami 1000M 25:48, did ok but held onto boat in last 300M due to indigestion.

Sam and I have been working with an OWS coach so I have gotten in about 3-4 OWS since Miami in November.

So based on those 2 stellar performances I started off in the back of the pack and let everyone go before I started.

Something amazing happened then, I actually caught right back up to the group and started passing people. First buoy went by, then the second and I felt great. I actually pulled up a few times because when I was breathing I saw people what looked like 100yards to my right and I had to stop to make sure that I was still going straight and I was. I hit each buoy perfectly right next to them as I went by. Made it to the turn around felling really good.

On the way back in another amazing thing happened, I started passing people from the wave that started 4 mins ahead of me, first time that has happened in a race.

I passed back strokers (felt for them as that is usually me) had one guy swim perpindicular to me and had to stop to make sure that I was going the right direction and I still was, hitting the buoys perfectly. Got kicked in the head once and it wasn't a big deal, tried drafting for a bit but the guy was going too fast for me to hold onto.

Swam right until I couldn't and got out of the water, looked at my watch and it was right around 30mins, I was psyched, think I could have easily gone under 30mins if I started in the pack and didn't pull up those few times because I wasn't confident in my line.

Next race going to put myself right in the middle of the pack and deal with the scrum, fast enough now to not have every single person swim over me.

haha what a cluster f$%k of a transition. Got out of the water and some kid handed me some gatorade and a gel, had them in each hand as I went to the strippers. Somehow I was in a daze at that time. Pulled the zipper down but couldn't get the velcro off my neck due to my hands being full and hurting my back trying to reach around. Stripper guy actually helped me get the suit off my back and was giving me instructions, lol. Then completely off. Somehow I still had my gatorade and Gel in my hand after that debacle and brain woke up and I dropped the gatorade.

Ran to my bike and feet were completely covered in sand, couldn't get the sand off and just said screw it and put my socks on over sandy feet (bad idea). No problems with the Boa laces on my new shoes, started out and realized my PT computer was still in my bag, not even on the bike so had to run back and get it on.

2nd tri in a row where my T1 was pathetic, just completely unorganized, my stuff was all in a pile. Not forget my PT.

Pretty hilly course around the lake.

First 10 or so miles had quite a few steep hills but the roads were nice and smooth. The big "Devils Hill" wasn't so bad, I passed a bunch of people going up it. Didn't change out my cassette for this so when I hit the hills I just had to power up them. Rode with quite a few of the same people for most of the ride. About 1/2 the ride was on very rough road, lots of cracks but not many potholes, even so my aero bars still dropped a bit on one crack and had to mess with them for a bit.

Some very fast descents and for me I thought the 2nd 1/2 of the course was tougher as the roads were rough and there were longer climbs as opposed to the short steep ones in the beginning part of the course.

On one long uphill ride I had a bug hit my helmet and figured it died. It didn't I heard a buzzing going on inside. My Aero helmet doesn't have many vents so no place for the bug to go. Had to hop off my bike to let it out, lol that probably cost me my 20mph ride right there...

The last few miles the road smoothed out and had a lot of descents where I caught back up and or passed a lot more people. Was easily able to undo my new shoes and rode into T2 on top of them and hopped off.

Not sure, this was a tough bike ride, 19.7 got me 184th overall on the bike. I think I could have ridden it a bit faster, needed some more challenging fast pace rides outside before hand.

Not much to do in T2, not sure why I can't figure that out in T1.

Ugh, where to start. When I made it out of T1 I had a ton of sand in my socks and it was still there. Started off my left foot was a bit numb, never had that happen before. Made it out onto the road and it felt like I had something in my shoe. Stopped on a rock and took my shoe off, looked inside nothing. Went back to running, felt like there was a decent size stick in my shoe running just behind my toes across my foot. Stopped again, took my sock off, rubbed my foot trying to get feeling into it, ran a bit with one sock off, still felt bad. Sat down yet again and put my sock on and just dealt with it for about 3-4 miles until the feeling just stopped. Very strange, never had anything like that happen.

Was pretty angry with myself, I was having a decent race to that point and yet again was screwing it up on the run.

Pretty much dead for the 2nd half of the run, Even with all that still could have gotten my sub 9:00 easily if I didn't have that whole numb foot stick in my shoe thing, very strange.

Swimming is coming along nicely, Biking is ok also, getting faster on the run but realistically need to get into the 7's to be respectible.

Possibly going to look for a running coach to help me out.

Crossed the finish line saw the family and went to the Margarita tent for a well deserved drink. My son had his 1k race at 3:00 so we stuck around for quite a while afterwards.


Started off using the back as an excuse but it didn't bother me at all. Should have just HTFU and ridden a bit harder on the bike and run harder.


5 stars to Keith the RD, they put on a hell of a race. Best Schwag of any race I have done. Plenty of food for both participants and spectators. Wonderful park to have the event in. My kids were there for 8+ hours for 2 days in a row and they had a great time. The kids zone was very popular and plenty of activities for them to do.

Very proud of my wife for finishing her first HIM on Sunday, not the easiest course in the world but she did it!

My son won the 6 and under pie eating contest (he tied with another kid) and won a towel and some kind of light up bouncing ball.

The kids race participants got a nice shirt and volunteers handed them a rubber race medal and a bottle of water when they crossed the finish line

My only complaint was that 2 of the roads were pretty crappy to ride on but you have to deal with that kind of thing at a lot of races.