Of the 12 girls in my AG that beat me, 3 of them beat me by less than 15 seconds! Urgh :( Bad swim. I tried to get a fast start to draft behind the fast swimmers...but I got stuck in the middle of a crowd and then ended up trying to play catchup and pass folks. Rounding the last buoy to the east the girl to my right decided she HAD to swim within six inches of the buoy and cut right across the front of me, punching me smack in the right goggle in the process. It was several minutes before I could really think straight. I kept swimming, but DANG that hurt! Eye is still sore. I am surprised I don't have a black eye. I was doing a terrible job sighting. I kept pulling right. The getting punched thing scared me into hanging out by myself on the side so I never drafted other than about 10 seconds somewhere in there. Near the final turn someone came up behind me and hit me in the back. This caused a 'WARDROBE MALFUNCTION'. My wetsuit came completely unzipped and I had to stop, reach behind me to rezip it, then start up again. About 100m from the end another guy not paying attention and using a swing-arm recovery instead of the nice keep-your-dang-arms-near-your-own-dang-head recovery slapped me right across the back of the head. Ow. Whatever. Get me out of this stupid mosh pit! ALMOST 4 minutes faster than last year's swim...

Try to get out front and draft off the fast girls.

Slow, but we had a long run to get to our bikes. Bad thing was that even though the wetsuit strippers pulled the zipper down for me, I neglected to take the suit off my shoulders until I was standing at my bike. Stupid Jen. Then my wetsuit got stuck on my chip. Oh well. I kind of took my time since this was a HIM and I didn't want to forget anything or have my socks stuck on funny. Really not bad considering. The mount line was poorly marked. But once across 'the line people were pointing at' I got on my bike better than last week!

Get the wetsuit down to my waist before getting to my bike.

Wow...that is smokin' fast for ME in Texas with hills and headwind. And it was STILL a PASS JEN PARTY!!!!! :) Seriously, HUNDREDS of people passed me! Gina passed me about 10 minutes in, and Jessi caught up about 50ish minutes in. I felt really good for about the first 30 miles. Even though people were passing me, I was seeing some really good speeds in my bike computer so I kept it semi-easy. Definitely harder than I've been riding, but I knew I couldn't go overboard. I really tried to keep a spin going. The first two hills right out of transition hurt worse than usual. Not really sure why. Felt very HEAVY going up them. But once up and over I just started spinning. The headwinds were not as bad as usual early on. Maybe I've just been riding in some nasty winds? That or it was still sort of early so the temp and winds hadn't picked up yet for the first southbound leg. Got up the third hill okay. Coming back DOWN that one I hit 43.9mph!!!! Wooohooo! Next 15ish miles were fairly uneventful. Past 30 miles I was starting to get a little bit uncomfortable on my bike. When I hit 40 I was downright HURTING. Lower back ached. Neck ached. Right knee was starting to complain. And the saddle was NOT comfortable! The last 10 miles were just awful for me. It didn't help that during those last 10 we were on a road that had 'hidden ruts' that you literally could NOT see until you hit them. I actually screamed a couple of times because of those ruts. I tried to sit up and put my hands in the horns when I wasn't going into the wind. And I also stood up a few times even on flats to give my body a break. I think the pain slowed me down because I did the first 40 miles in 2:20 and the last 16 took me almost an hour. I was drinking plenty of water and I had a water bottle with four diluted gels in it. But an hour and a half in I started to get hungry...bad sign. So at one of the last aid stations I took an extra gel. That's FIVE gels on the bike...I'm a pig! It didn't start to really get hot until the last hour. That's good! It's like racing against the sun...the faster you go, the less heat you'll have to deal with on the run!
Overall...the time is VERY good for me...even if it's not good in general. Last year the bike leg took me 30+ minutes longer...sheesh!

Ride more long rides. I did one 56 mile ride and maybe 3-4 40ish mile rides. Not enough long stuff. Also going to get my bike fit tweaked...I thought I had enough time from buying the bike til this race to get it right...I think I was wrong. It needs some adjusting.

Again...the mount/dismount line was poorly marked. I clipped out too early and had my feet on the pedals not clipped in. About 15 feet before the line I felt them about to slip off the pedals and I ended up doing this funky hop astraddle my bike thing to keep from landing on my crotch or falling over. I'm sure it looked ugly. Oh well. Looks like a slow transition, but I had to shove someone's bike aside who hadn't racked it properly to put mine in. Then I put some sunblock on so I wouldn't turn into a lobster. AND I stopped in the porta potties. AND there was a long run to the exit. Not bad, really....

Get off my bike safely. My day almost ended there!

Mile 1: 9:11
Mile 2: 9:17
Mile 3: 9:37
Mile 4: 10:27
Mile 5: 10:36
Mile 6: 10:11
Mile 7: 11:07
Mile 8: 10:24
Mile 9: 9:44
Mile 10: 12:14
Mile 11: 11:48
Mile 12: 13:03
Mile 13: 14:06

Now for the play by play...I felt GREAT at the start of this run. I planned to run with a bottle of propel so that I could get more fluids in me at the beginning of the run. So I take off, sipping on my ice cold propel, feeling slow because the world was going by much faster on the bike. I resist the urge to push too hard because I KNOW my brain always tells me I'm going slow when I first start running but I'm really not. I already notice one bonus to having gone faster on the bike. Dang...the eye candy is GOOD! To think I missed all this last year! All the fast boys are coming in! Shirts unzipped or flipped up so their six packs are exposed. Hmmm...I might enjoy this run more than I thought! Anyway....I wait til the first mile marker to decide how it's going. Wow...9:11...I'll take that...good pace! Keep plodding along and get a 9:17 for mile two. Very happy. Feeling great. Getting some good fluids down. At the aid stations I'm just grabbing water to dump on my back to keep myself cool. I expected my bottle of propel to last 6 miles, but coming up on aid station 3 (at mile 3) it's almost gone. I plan to finish it off by Mile 4. I turn the corner at mile 3 and hit the first B*tch of a hill. Notice how much slower 4 was than the first three...stupid hill. It was HUGE! Go right back down a big hill to finish off mile 4, but the damage had been done from the big UPhill. Mile 5 and 6 get a little hazy. There was another large hill in there...I THINK it was in mile 5. But that kind of knocked me out for mile 6, but since it was flat I tried to push a little and as you can see, the time was faster than both 4 and 5 and I thought...well, 10's for the rest of the day would be okay. I ate a gel right before the turn around. Two aid stations in mile 7 and my knees were starting to complain so it was slow. They started complaining MORE during mile 8. Uh oh...NOT good. But as you can see, I was still holding pace. Mile 9 had a huge downhill in it so it was speedy, but I was really starting to shuffle from the knees. They were straight up aching all the way through. The pain got sharper and sharper and as it did the pace got slower and slower. Otherwise, I felt GREAT still. But the pain in my knees was just too much. There was still another uphill in there somewhere. The last two miles I walked a lot. People started passing me. Walking felt MUCH better to my knees. Every time I'd start to run again they were just screaming. I actually thought I was going so slow that I wasn't going to make my goal time. But I guess I went JUST fast enough. Oddly enough, I NEVER walked during the race last year but I still went faster THIS year...by about 4 minutes...hmmmm....

Get new knees.

The BT gang was there to greet me (since I was the slowest). I stood around getting angry at my knees. Drank a little water. Took pictures. Gathered up my stuff and Lane helped Gina and I walk back up the stupid hill out of transition to our cars.


My knees.


This is a tough, tough course! But I was SOOOOO ready for it and everything was going great. I was very, very upset at my knees. Almost in tears at the finish. I worked so hard, they hadn't really been bothering me, and they just gave up on me. Other than my knees trying to cecede from my body with 5 miles to go...I have to admit that I had a good race.
1. I wanted to go under 0:35 for the swim. I did.
2. I wanted to go under 3:30 for the bike, I did (and then some). In addition, I did not want to flat on the bike and I didn't.
3. I wanted 2:15 for the run, and if my knees hadn't hurt I think I would have made it.
4. But my overall time goal was 6:25 and I beat it. AND that crushes last year's time by FORTY minutes.
I should be happy. I just have some decisions to make about my knees, which makes me very unhappy.

Sorry for the long RR...but it was a long race...