I remember people starting out too fast last year and I hung back a bit. As I said before I didn't have anything to prove because if I raced it would hurt my HIM training too much so I just tried to keep my breathing even and a reasonable pace. I did take water at the aid station but hardly got any in my mouth. Tried to encourage and chat to a few other people around.

Nothing. This run was fine.

I was pretty slow but nothing to worry about.

I should actually put the zip laces I have on my shoes. That will save some time

Started out with a good pack but was conscious of not drafting. I felt strong on the first few hills but I started to fade about 1/3rd of the way into the course. I was pretty uncomfortable in my saddle with the tri shorts and I was probably also still sore from my long ride the day before. I kept drinking as much as i could. I did take a minute to look around a few times. At one point it was so beautiful - on a sort of ridge with the bright blue sky and country landscape.

I seemed to get back in the groove in the last 10k but my legs were pretty tired. And it felt like much of the race had passed me. I was really impressed with a few 50+ ladies who blew by me!

I came back into transition to see my fiance and his brother's family including his two young nieces cheering me on so that was nice boost!

Not sure much of it was in my control. If this were an A race I wouldn't have done a 3 hour ride the day before. I probably would have eaten - i didn't bother trying to open the pack of Gu chomps I had in my bento box.

Nothing much here. Sucked back some extra water and headed off.

Even hotter now. I had not planned on busting it but when I looked down at my Garmin in the first k my pace was much faster than i planned. Took a minute to physically and mentally slow down. The rolling hills do take a toll and I didn't want to barf! I wanted to run the whole thing and not melt into a giant puddle. I walked through both aid stations to actually take fluid in. And on the second the little guy giving out water threw one on me and gave me a water. Very nice!

I did catch up to a girl in my age group at the very end but decided against sprinting the grass to catch her. Turns out i was only 3 seconds behind.

Nothing. If anything I would have slowed down more but after looking at the results I paced well as I was only about 45 seconds slower on the second run than the first.

Not too much. Went straight to the gatorade table and sucked back a cup. Mmmmm. Decided to get food before meeting up with the family. They had pulled pork barbecue this year. I ate that quite happily.


Well, being in the middle of HIM training I wasn't worried much about performance and went out just to see how I would do and have fun on the closed course for a bike! I am not that strong on the bike so that will need to get much much better for the HIM not be a slog come September


This a great early season race I would recommend to anyone. The weather can be drastically different each year and this was probably the hottest it's been in a number of years.