Since I've never had a swim where I stayed relaxed and free style the whole way in OWS I decided to make a consioius effort to swim easy and relax and try to disturb as little water as possible on entry which would theoretically make me stay relaxed. I kind of hung back a bit up until 20 seconds before the start and because everyone (!!!) was way over to the right decided to stay left and on the buoy line. Started out smooth and was sighting well. At the 1st buoy I knew I was in a good rhythm but when I looked up to sight I could see a mass exodus from my right heading to the buoys/kayaks for help. I was able to navigate through that without many issues and before I knew it I was at the turn buoy and just in completely clean water. It ran through my mind to pick up the pace a bit and push it but decided to execute the plan I came with and stayed easy and smooth. I even caught a few people from the prior wave which I'm pretty sure must be a 1st for me. My line was very straight for some reason on this swim which allowed me not sight as often which helped a bit. I remembered from last year that you need to swim right up to the yellow exit buoys in order to stand so did that well and I was done.

Assuming I'm actually now getting comfortable in OW push myself through at least parts of the swim as there's about 1 minute of time out there for me to get with my current ability.

I had an awful T1 in last years race so wanted to chop some time off here. Felt good and not winded coming out of the water (gotta like when a plan works!) so was able to run up a little hill and into transition. Passed Jared right at the entry into transition and told him this is a race not a walk-a-thon. Pretty sure he told me where to go :) Ran to bike, socks on, shoes on, helmet on and a quick swig of gatorade. Then ran with the bike out of transition and eventually over the timing mat and to the mount line. Sort of stopped and clipped in instead of doing it on the move.

Gotta move quicker with the socks/shoes in transition. I feel there's still 40 or 50 seconds to gain here.

Was a little concerned as my legs didn't feel the freshest running up through T1 and onto the bike. Didn't jump on the bike to get started but got up to speed quick and I was off. Picked off about a dozen folks on the road exiting the park and then a few more on Huges Dr. Was passed by 2 guys here who were flying so I couldn't even use them as someone to try and stay with as way too fast for me. Fell into a good rhythm and was passing folks every once in awhile. Played tag with a guy on a yellow canondale as we must've passed each other a dozen times on the course. Since my goal was 20 mph average and I had biked this course a number of times I knew I needed to find 1.5 minutes from my last training run by the time I got to Old Trenton Road. I had hit it at 26 minutes before and needed at least 24:30 here. As I made the turn it was right at 24:28 so knew I had a chance. About 1/2 mile onto Old Trenton I had to slow and almost stop as someone was way out on the left passing and it caused cars to slow down and other riders to slow down with no way around without risking great bodily harm. Once they got by I sped up and went by a bunch of folks leading back into the park. Tried to push as hard as I could in the park and to the dismount. Off the bike and sort of running back to the timing mat and was less than 30 seconds off of my goal.

I've spent more time on the bike this year but still need to increase that for the future.

I was surprised about how slow this was. It didn't seem like I was going slow but must've been in comparison to other folks time.

Move quicker.

Realized pretty quick that my legs didn't want to go as fast as I wanted them to. As I was running through the grass chute to get out to the path there were 4 people in my age group I could see ahead of me. My goal became to catch and pass them. To be honest it felt like I was crawling during this run and I was very hot. I was able to reel in some runners and pass them and not get passed a whole lot. I felt every little uphill portion and it seemed to zap any desire I had to push it a little harder. When I heard the announcer around the corner I got this huge feeling of relief as I was really ready to be done running and I ran off to the finish line strong.

I was training for the Oly and was concentrating on longer runs and maintaining a pace of about 8:30 for that. That seems to have become my pace also for sprints. I need to work on my short runs and get some speed back.

Grabbed a water and finisher's medal and went over to see Dad. Also saw Jared's wife and kids so talked to them for awhile. Then headed over to the Ryan's Quest tent to see how everyone did. Found my way to the beer garden after that for a nice cold Stella which tasted incredibly good!


Just time to train really. That'll probably always be the case but I'm ok with that and I'll just try to chip away at the areas I can gain a few seconds on.


What can you say for a race that has 2000 or some competitors. Larry and Michelle do an absolutely great job plus it's 5 minutes from my house! Already can't wait until next year.