Being my 'home' lake, very relaxed going into swim. Decided to stay to out side to avoid traffic for the third race in a row. This meant no real drafting opportunity. Pushed pretty hard (for me) for 1st 100 or so, eased back a little. Pushed it pretty hard again on most of second loop. Felt really good and steady for entire swim. Last year: 1:37, this year 1:28. I suspect this course was a bit short, but even with that, easily my best swim of the year.

Have confidence to push harder for entire distance.

This actually went pretty well. About 30 seconds faster than usual. Will take what ever I can get.

not sure

At the last minute (like I got e-mail Saturday night) bike course was changed because of chip sealing done on course on thursday. So course was about a 1/2 mile longer than last year. Also there was some hills on this route. Nothing big by any means, but not the pancake flat of the regular course. Was really hoping to have a bike that met my expectations. As we started out there was a bit of a headwind and my pace was not what I wanted. I started saying, here we go again,another sub-par performance. At about mile 7 I had a conversation with myself. I told myself that if I wanted a better result, I was the only guy who was going to make it happen and that I had time to still do it, if I chose. This result is still not where I want to be, but I'm ok with it, because I worked my tail off for this one. The advances I had hoped for on the bike this year have never come, but I felt I gave this my best effort for what I had to give today. Time is almost identical to last year, but course was longer. Best bike of the season.

That what the off-season is for.

not bad, about where it always is.

This year my run has been a bright spot. However, I was a bit surprised, after a hard effort on the bike, how fresh my legs felt. My Garmin freaked out about 1/2 mile in and read that I had gone 2666 miles at a 6:42 pace. I had no accurate pace data, except each mile, it would give me a correct pace read out. So I just had to go from feel. I was shooting for a 8:30 pace and seemed lock in pretty good. I told myself that fading was simply not an option (I talked to myself a lot today) All my training and mental self talk were no match for what I faced at mile 5. There right ahead of me was a guy in a speedo, who had no business being in a speedo. I did my best to focus my eyes up hi and I got through it.

Not much, this beat my expectations and last year's time by 5 minutes

got some water and then talked up with all the Donkey folk.


my slowness gene, but at least it was not my attitude.


I can not underestimate, how important for me it was to have a good race. PR'ing by 14 minutes, even with a longer bike ride, was beyond my expectations. Sure there is lots of room for improvement, but a least I am excited again about trying to improve, instead of thinking about hanging it up.