Started in the front row on the far left side. Went out pretty aggressively but nothing too hard and settled in to a good pace out to the first buoy.

Rounding the first buoy, I get stuck in between to big guys with no room to navigate. I pop my head up for a sec and BAM I get smacked in the face right across the goggles. I reset my goggles and immediately think of retaliating; by now he's about five yards ahead of me and moving quickly... I start to catch him and settle on drafting, it's a race after all. I might have touched his feet a little more than necessary, though =p

Not get punched in the face!

T! worked better this time; I wore a loose fitting jersey which was easier to put on. Ran with my shoes (easy in a grass transition area) and got a boost from the volunteer at the mounting area. Immediately after I clip in the guy in front of me almost goes down, forcing me off the path to the left and through gravel. Ew! I got lucky and no popped tire. As I'm getting up to speed my right foot wasn't clipped in properly so it popped out and I kicked my front tire pretty hard. That was scary, but I managed to stay up somehow... I pressed 'start' on my Garmin.

Clip in properly...

Once I got clipped in, things were good. I got to the hill climb which is at the first hill, so close to the start of the bike it's not worth hammering at the expense of the other (plentiful) hills.

Up ridge road was great, I got some serious speed going over the little rollers and manages to pick off a few riders. I flew down the big descent and managed to take the 'sharp' turn at the bottom with very little braking.

Turning on to East Lake road for the haul back and I realized that it would be harder than usual; there was a strong wind coming from the South, and I was seven miles directly North of the transition area, and several hundred feet below it.

The climbs themselves aren't too bad, but pushing them wasn't an attractive option. They are long and numerous, not a huge grade but a demoralizing one.

I'm slogging up a hill and I drift too far to the right - oops, the shoulder is gravel but looks the same as the pavement on the road. I almost went down, luckily I caught myself. My fault for not paying close enough attention...

I didn't really see many other riders out on the course. It kind of creeps me out, racing with 200 other people and then only seeing a handful during the race. Where did they go?

Last year I did the Intermediate course and was 1mph faster on average; maybe because of the conditions, or maybe because I didn't push as hard this year. I'm not sure so I'm calling it a wash.

My feet came out of shoes easily and I made the sharp downhill turn into the park without major issues. Took me two tries to get my feet into my running shoes because they got wet running in the grass. No biggie - not to much to screw up and I did it better than most.

Exited the transition area (at the bottom) which was nice, I actually had a great transition spot without realizing it.

Dunno...

Started out up the hill and out of the park. I started to see the top finishers come in as I was running the first mile. I see my fiancee and then I see cusetri! We yell something at each other and continue on. I got pretty confused, there is nobody running the same direction as me. I get a 'water' from the first water station, and dump it on my head. I hear the volunteers saying 'oh no!' and I realize I just dumped sports drink all over myself. Yay~

So I get to the turnaround and I get a better picture of what was happening; I was in front of a lot of people. I'm not used to that, hence my confusion. I picked it up a little bit for the run back, which was largely downhill. At the high school, 400 yards from the finish, I picked it up again to a sub-7 pace, only to get passed with 100 yards left by a young girl on a relay team.

~

Walked around, grabbed some food and ran into Xan and Cusetri. Said hi and headed back to the house for brunch.


My race strategy was to keep it fun and not push terribly hard. Which is great for recovery but is not so competitive... I've been a little burnt out lately, so less training than planned and lower expectations for performance in the race. Considering it all, I did a good job.


1. The race website listed the race start time as 8:45, and at packed pickup I was told the start would be at 8:30. I don't want to miss a race! This wasn't consistent last year either... At one point before the race, the domain name expired and the course website was down for a week.

2. The exit/entry to the park is on a steep grade. Lined with spectators on either side, with cones down the middle. There isn't much room for error! My fans reported many people slipping either when they mounted their bikes or were entering/exiting the transition area on the run.