Slow swim, especially for me. I was in cruise mode since I swam exactly THREE times in between today and my last race in late May. It was crowded, lots of bumping. I wasn't going to push it and risk blowing my top WAY too early.

Actual swim training would help greatly. ;-) I'm usually a good bit under 2:00/100 on race day. Heck, I'm under that on slowish training days...

This includes the ~100 yds run from the water to transition. Wiped the feet, helmet on, shoes on, and off we go.

Get my tri shoes set up and use them in a real race.

I REALLY wanted a 20 mph bike split today. I missed it by 0.2 mph. I spun up one hill so I wouldn't blow my top, and that cost me the 0.2 mph. Oh well. On the way back in, I was pushing 25-30 mph with no help/draft, playing yo-yo with a couple people on tri bikes. I really like out-cornering them too. ;-)

Again, 90% of the people who passed me were aero. That kept me from my goal split too. I'm lazy in not getting my tri bike up and running, silly life all getting in the way.

GET YOUR AERO SETUP FINISHED!!!

Aside from hat, nothing. This was a strong ride. I hit this one just right.

Time is sort of an estimate, I forgot to hit the Lap button about 1:00 into transition.

Use my tri shoes and get some elastic laces. That's where most of my time is wasted in T2.

I didn't think I was running this fast, because I thought it was a straight-up 5k, not 3.4 (I always forget that). SO my pace was considerably faster than I originally thought during the run. I was about 9:20 to Mile One and feeling okay. I tried picking up the pace a little.

My quads started to cramp up a little at the end of Mile Two, so I stopped to stretch for a sec. Did this a couple other times for a total of abotu 30 secs. I was right on pace with a younger guy, so we were yo-yo-ing back and forth for a good mile or so.

Once I saw the park/finish across the lake, I picked up my pace a bit more. The finish is uphill, so that mamkes it even tougher. Once I got on the home stretch, I saw my friend Marc (he finished 7th overall) and I knew I had my final sprint coming up as he always yells at me to finish as hard as I can.

Sure enough, he catches sight of me about 200 yards from the finish, and off we go. I speed up and finish in a FULL SPRINT, catching and passing two people in the last 100 yards, the second two steps from the line.

Good start, average middle, strong finish to my run.

Train more, that's about it. I did well to get my run times back down around 8:00-8:20 in the couple weekd before the race. More time running = faster Kotter

Water, banana, gatorade, water, chat up some people, get a kiss from the gf.




Lack of traning time. That's it.


It's official, I got out of Back-Of-Back today in both AG and overall. STOKED. In only my 2nd season racing. It only gets better from here, right?

This race is fun. It's medium-key. Well-organized but laid-back. Good atmosphere, very fun. And no thunderstorm this year! ;-)