mass start; all participants taking off at same time. Not really good for me or a lot of others as it turns out. Started up front on the right side and figured I'd rather be run over than have to run over others. This was not a bad strategy as I was still passing people on the swim, but was still fighting through arms and legs all the way to the turn bouy. On the return I was hugging the bouys on the right and many of the slower swimmers had veered into the return line. The sun was directly in front of you on the return as well. Ran head-on into a very large person who popped me hard in the nose with his/her fist. Thought it was broken, but kept going. Lost my swim cap in another collision. Very glad I put my goggles on underneath my cap. Despite the rigors of the swim, managed to keep my heartrate down. Pace was not what I wanted, but was OK given conditions.

I just really have to bite the bullet and take some actual swim instruction. I have gone as far as I can go on self-teaching. I came out of the water over 6 minutes after the leaders in my age group. That's over a 2 mile head start on the bike. Tough to make up.

they evened out the transition area so that everyone had to basically go the same distance to get to your bike and out the bike-out. I chose to put my bike shoes on ahead of getting on the bike even though I feel pretty comfortable with the shoes already clipped in routine. I decided that since I was about 15 yeards from the mount line, and since it was a mass-start, and since the road right out of transition was a little dicey in terms of ruts, etc I should put shoes on first. Was a good decision.

Nothing. Happy with this.

By far the best bike performance I have had in any competition. The closed highway course was fantastic. Felt my heart leap for joy when I saw how open it was. Wanted to hold back for a fast run, but couldn't keep my legs from going as fast as they wanted to go, so just gave in to it and resigned myself to a slow run time in favor of the joy of this bike ride. Passed dozens of people on the straight-aways and hills and on the windy return legs of the highway segments. There was a 1-mile "speed challenge" set up on course which was unfortunately right in the teeth of the wind on one of the highway segments. Great idea though. I focused on staying consistent in my cadence/effort so didn't push much more than usual during this mile-long segment. Absolutely loved this bike course. They had obviously spent a lot of time getting it prepared; fresh asphalt in the cracks, swept clean. One guy in front of me on one of the turnarounds took a nasty fall as he tried to hit it too fast, but he was OK and got back on his bike to continue. W0ondering if the bike segment was a little short as it seems somewhat unrealistic that I averaged over 25mph with that headwind. Oh well.

absolutely nothing.

as fast as I could get on this. Was happy with it. Slipped feet out of shoes with about 100 yds to go, jumped off right at dismount line and ran 15 yards to my rack. Had to exit run-out all the way down at the other end of the transition area. Felt good as I was running out, which surprised me since I had put so much effort into the bike.

Nothing.

Straight run out and back. The endless orange cones toyed with my head as it seemed I was not making any progress. I had originally wanted to go easy on the bike in favor of a good run performance, but tossed that idea out after I saw how fun the bike course was. I knew I would pay for my effort on the bike with a painful run and that is exactly what happened. I was goinng as fast as my legs would carry me, but didn't feel like I got into a rhythm until the turn-around at mile 3. Also, had not practiced enough with my new(er) shoes and no socks - blister opened up around mile 2 and my shoe was a bloody mess at the end of the run. Passed 2 people and got passed by 2 people so was a net-zero on the run. Made up a lot of time on the last mile as I heard footsteps behind me and didn't want to get passed so cranked it up to use everything I had left. Finished very strong and shook hands with Leon gratefully at the finish line.

more brick training that is high-intensity bike followed by high-intensity run.

took off shoes and waded back into the lake. Some stretching, ate as much as I could from the fruit table. 2 Scoops of Endurox. Tried to find ice for my very sore nose from the swim collision.


unfamiliarity with mass-swim start. Swim anxiety. Can't really sport my age group competition a 6+ minute head start and then expect to catch them. Overall though, this was a new OLY PR for me, so I am not complaining.


Overall, this is a very good race and I'm sure that much was learned from this year that will carry over into next year. I was only disappointed by a couple of minor things: the event was billed as having a "military jet fly-over" which never happened. Not too surprised by that, but would have been better to not set any expectations on that. There were no trash cans anywhere to be found. How does that happen? No trash cans outside the port-o-potties to throw away your paper towels used to dry your hands, no trash cans around transtion to toss out empty water bottles. What's up with that? The results took forever to be posted on-line and there is no direct link to them from the Leon's web site. Some things that are great about this race: bike course, custom-built bike racks, parking was great, organization of race was great, Leon personally welcoming each participant back to the finish line was a great personal touch. Really fun race and will do again next year.