This was the most beautiful swim ever. I started in the second wave and the sun was just coming up behind the huge redwoods, while the fog was lifting from the calm waters of the Russian River.

The water was warm and nice, but I decided to put my wetsuit on anyway because of the extra flotation/speed advantage. It paid off handsomely as I beat my projected swim time of 35 min. Definitely my fastest swim (as you can see I'm not a good swimmer :)

Nothing, as I said this was my best swim ever. On a second thought, I'd probably push a little harder...

T1 was real bad. I was pretty quick getting my wetsuit off and putting my bike gear on and packing all my stuff for shipment to T2. Then I started running with my bike out of T1 and it felt funny: looked at my rear wheel and I realized I had a flat tire, $#!t Fixed the tire in nearly record time, but I lots of time had already gone by ...

Avoid a flat in T1 :)

I had two main issues with the bike course: (1) I trained by riding on flat terrain and climbing long hills, and unfortunately this combo didn't work very well with the roller-coaster kind of terrain of the Vineman, as I was unable to maintain an optimal pace/cadence. (2) I packed too much Perpetuem in my water bottle and the density of the resulting drink, coupled with the heat, made it hard to digest.

Despite those issues, I managed to get very close to my projected average speed of 20 mph.

Obviously train on terrain that reproduces race conditions more closely, and carry 2 bottles of diluted fuel instead of a single, concentrated one.

T2 took way too long too. The day before the race dropped at T2 my Fuelbelt with three canteens supposedly containing HEED powder and electrolytes, and a big water to fill them up (I didn't want to let the solution laying in the heat too long). Too bad that when I was filling the canteens I realized there was no HEED in them, $#!t #2. So I just wasted time for nothing...

How about making sure that the HEED is in the canteens before dropping the gear at T2?

The run course was not as nice as the bike one. There was a section with some tree coverage, but most of it was totally exposed to the scorching sun. The terrain was hilly, but I didn't suffer as mush as with the bike leg because I trained on similar terrain. However I had GI issues because I didn't have my HEED and electrolytes and I had to rely on the Gatorade and PowerGel offered at the aid station. I'm not a big fan of either because they are too sweet and sugary and don't have the right electrolyte profile. But since I'm a bonehead I had to deal with them anyway :)

Keeping cool was pretty easy because of the close proximity of the aid stations. Kudos to the volunteers and the organizers for that.

Despite all the issues above, I managed to finish my half marathon below the projected time of 1:45.

See T2

No way to cool off in such heat. I just sat in the shadow of a tent and stretched a bit, but I kept sweating for a good 20 min.


Heat, GI issues, non-specific bike training


Overall this was my best race so far. Very competitive, highly scenic, great organization (if there was a single transition it would be better though), and lots of nice volunteers. Definitely recommended!