I had a good swim this year, but my time was nearly a minute slower than last year. My AG ranking, though, improved from 12/130 in '04 (9.2%) to 14/167 this year (8.4%). Navigation was no problem at all this year, I purposely swam wide to get clear open water and settle into a good pace and I had good sighting to the buoys. I breath bi-laterally and sight every 12th stroke.

Nothing.

I shaved 33 seconds off last year's T1 time, so I can't complain too much. I had the longest possible run from the water exit to my bike. Had a little problem with the wetsuit, first leg came off perfectly, second stuck. I chose to put on socks and put on my cycling gloves instead of doing on the bike.

Need to practice more to cut some significant time from here.

Exactly one minute slower than last year. Better than I expected, since I've only been on my bike outdoors 2 times this year (trainer workouts and spin classes have been my primary cycling workouts this year for several reasons). This is just a fun course, lots of rollers, ups and downs. I got passed by lots of people and just didn't worry about it.

Train more on the bike outdoors, more structured training plan.

Funny, this is the EXACT time for last year's T2. No better, no worse. Thanks to my speed laces the running shoes slipped on quickly and easily - I absolutely swear by them now. I had a GU gel in my hand to take once the run started but running out of T2 I dropped it and stepped on it, spraying GU all over the place. Pretty funny, and I had an extra so no damage. My back was already aching - bad omen of things to come....

practice. Still could shave off 30 seconds pretty easily by avoiding a waist belt to carry gel packs.

Overall a 2 minute improvement on last year's run time, the surprise of the day for me. Especially since the first 3 miles I battled a serious aching in my lower back/side that really crippled me. Some time between the 2 and 3 mile marks it became tolerable and then pretty much went away. This was nothing new or unexpected, I had a back injury about a month ago and I've felt the same pain in recent brick workouts, so I just kept running through it hoping it would work itself out. It did, and my last 3 mile splits were negative splits. I suspect my last mile was under 8:00, but I missed the mile marker and have to settle for an average across the last 2 miles. The hills seemed harder this year, probably because my running base is far less than it was last year.

Overdistance training up to 10 miles. My longest training run this year is about 7 miles, and I haven't been training on hills as much as I did last year.

Training this year has been sporadic and unstructured due to several factors in my family life and a recent back injury. I did not participate in a late winter/early spring running race which would have gone a long way to force me to build up a needed running base over the winter (as it was my run was the most improved part of the race this year). Most of my cycling this year so far has been weekly spin classes and indoor trainer workouts. Though I enjoy these workouts and feel they provide some benefit, they do not adequetly substitute for outdoor rides. More bricks would be helpful, and more 2 plus hour workouts would help.


I love this race. I signed up for it knowing I wouldn't be as well trained as I would like to be just because it's close, it's fun, and it draws a really strong field of competitors. It was a beautiful day to race, I had a pretty good race considering how my year has gone with respect to training, and I thoroughly enjoyed the morning. Can't wait for next year.