25 meters into the swim my right goggle seal failed and my contact slipped off. Not the start I visualized. It took me a minute to fix the goggle and to wiggle the contact les back onto my eye.
The rest of the swim went better than I could have imgagined. I was frutrated with my stupiditiy for not warming up and testing the goggles - this kept my mind occupied and I was no longer nervous about the actual swim.

At the end of the swim, I crawled out onto the green golf course grass and found a pair of free wet-suit strippers. Two over-zelaus teenaged boys. They grabbed my DeSoto T1 Black Pearl suit and yanked. Too enthusiastically. They ripped the entire back pannel and one shoulder strap off. At the same time my left calf muscle cramped into a solid rock. I lay on the fairway writhing in pain trying to unlock my muscle. A few minutes later, with a trashed wetsuit and leaky goggles, I was hobbling the 400 meters uphill toward the transition.

- Swim 100m to warm up and test all my swim gear.
- Drink more water and have a banana to prevent cramps
- not use the strippers - take the extra 10 seconds and peel off my suit myself.

I have no idea why T1 took so long. I guess the time must include the run from the water to the T1 zone.
I did go slowly and methodically getting ready for the bike.
The smartest thing I did was to grab a bunch of tissues for the bike ride.

I decided to take it easy on this ride. I am a gravitationally challenged person (i.e. 200lbs on a 5'11" frame) and ride a tri-bike that loves only flats.
20km into the race, just as the worst of the initial hills starts to end, I hear a pop and then clinking sounds. I stop and find a front spoke bent out. I remove the offending spoke and keep riding. My front wheel now has a noticable wobble.
45km into the ride I hit a dropped power-bar. A few seconds later a second spoke goes. I was now riding out of my aero-bars. At 65km I lost a third spoke. By now my front wheel looks like the face of a hockey player with missing teeth. The tire is so wobbly that I had to disconnect my front brake cable. All 3 spokes failed on one side of the wheel - I figured the next spoke failure will collapse the front wheel and send me headfirst into DNF. I was terrified. All I could think about was how much I wanted that stupid FINISHER's T-shirt, hat and medal. I saw a number of riders on the side of the road with terminal mechanical problems - I did not want to be one of them.

I rode the last 30km at Mary Poppins spped, avoiding any pressure on the front weel, dodging all uneven bumps and cracks. Somehow I made it to T2. My speed on the last 30km must have been under 20km/hr.

I had never been so happy to start a run...





Get my bike professionally tuned and inspected beforehand.

Took it easy. I still could not believe it that I made it off the bike without the wheel giving out.

I was doing fine until the 13km mark (averaging about 6 min/km). then I bloinked. My calves cramped up and I could not run without them cramping into solid balls. Even a cafinated gel pack could not help.
I walked / shuffled the last 5km.

Train more.

Played with kids. Ate post-race pizza.




Mechanical problems cost me about 20 mins.
Not enough training - particularly running.


Since this was my first HIM, I did set a PERSONAL BEST just by finishing.
Next year I'll be looking to smash that time.