I am not sure why they have the 35-39 men and the 30-34 men start as the last two swim waves, but it makes for a lot of passing of other people and I would imagine frustrating on their part too. I apologize to anyone that I accidently hit, I don't mean too, but when you get that many people in front of us, we are bound to run over some people.

As we were entering the water the announcer said our age group was the biggest out there today.

Try and stay on the feet of the 1 guy that beat me in my age group. I could see him most of the time on the way to the turnaround, but lost him in the crowd of the earlier swim waves.

I did not like the T1 setup at all. Way too crowded and it is an old parking lot with lots of loose gravel and rocks. I think I stepped on about every one of them too. The bottom of my foot is bruised and cut a little from one of the rocks. Put some green turf down or something. .. .not a good setup.

Oh and since it was so crowded, you were at the mercy of the person in front of you as to how fast you could run out of T1.

Not much I could do, I figured I would be around 2 minutes on this transition, and I was.

I didn't have my bike computer so I had to calculate how fast I was going by time and the mile markers. I wanted to go 2 hours 30 minutes and wanted to keep the HR down. At mile 30 I could tell I was right on track and HR was where I wanted it to be. I passe a ton of people until the last 10 miles or so and then was out in the front with most of the age groupers. I got to see the PROs on the bike twice and that was cool to see.

I did this course about 1 minute faster than Redman and this was a tougher course, and more important my HR was down to where it should be on not bouncing in the 170s.

I was preparing myself for the run and kept going over my gameplan in my head. This helped to pass the time and also prepare my self mentally for the run.


Not much, maybe remember bike computer, but I don't think it hurt me to not have it.

It was easy to spot my stuff, and made it over to my spot. I noticed that there were not many bikes in yet, which is always a good thing. Threw the running socks and shoes on and hit the T2 exit.

Nothing

Ahh. . .FINALLY!!!!! A Respectful run! This was my biggest worry coming into the race. . .I have worked a ton on my run and although I have done some sprints and I seem to be running faster, I wasn't tested at the longer distance. I did an Olympic two weeks ago and had a horrible run. So I needed to see what I was made of at this race. The plan was to try and hold 8 minute miles for as long as I could.

I put the forerunner 305 on my righ wrist so I could have instant pacing numbers (yes, I had two watches on). This was a big benefit, since sometimes I think I am "hurting" when in reality I am just feeling sorry for myslef. So now I could see what my pace was and my HR and knew that I had more in the tank that what I was using. The crowds were great there, and I heard my name called by all of my friends on the way out of T1.

I managed to have a strong pace to start off and it was around 7:45 or so. I felt good and knew that keeping my HR down on the bike was paying off on the run. I also had made many a deposit this past fall/winter/spring by putting in some bigger miles and now I was making the withdrawal. Keep in mind that while this might not be fast for some people, my stand alone Half Marathon time at the KC Half Marathon last fall is 1:39.52 . . . So the pace I was going/holding would put me around 1:45, when in reality I would have been happy with 1:50 or so. Mile after mile went by and I started to do the math in my head of projected finish time. I could tell that my pace slowed at about mile 9 and it was getting hot, but managed to push through and just tell myself, 4 more miles, 3 more miles, 2 more miles. . and that I had run that far hundreds of times in the past with no problem.

Making the turn for the finish chute was the best feeling in the world! I knew that I would break 4:45 and was pumped about that. I crossed the finish line and was tired, but not fall to the ground tired. . . which is what I wanted to experience. My run time was very good for me, and I finally held it together for the run!!

Nothing. . I did all I could.

Just walked around and talked with friends. I was going to get a massgage but never made it over to the tent.


Nothing that I can think of. Still need to work on the run and I can get better on that. Maybe some more bike training too.

During the race, a Clearwater slot was in the back of my mind, but I lost count of how many 35-39 year old males passed me on the run. When I got done, I went over to results and it said that I was 15 in my age group with only 5 slots to be given out. . .well, I didn't stick around for Rolldown. . .in hindsight I should have. A friend of mine thinks it would have rolled down to me. . . Crap! Oh well, I will need to earn it somewhere else and this time not try to leave it up to Rolldown.


AWESOME RACE! Just fix the T1 fiasco.