Not to brag, but awesome swim for me! My best yet -- I had a gameplan and I executed it even better than expected! The horn went off and everyone took off. I took my time wading out, at the back and to the side. Performed a couple of dolphin dives and started swimming. With the rest of the athletes on my left, I was surprised to see after a few strokes that many people were still walking! It was very shallow, so more power to them. I kept the pack to my left and focused on remaining calm, keeping my breathing steady and HR down. After a couple of minutes, I realized that I was steadily moving up the side of the pack, picking swimmers off one at a time! This was a huge confidence boost for me, someone who only learned how to swim 18 months ago. I could see some people really struggling as I went around them, and I really felt for them -- I've been in your shoes, buddy. Stick with it, don't give up.

Went around the buoy feeling great. Wasn't setting any records but was definitely holding a PR pace. Just focused on staying focused, sighting, and getting back to shore with a low HR. Kept passing swimmers, started pulling a little harder once I made the turn and realized that 0.33 miles was no longer as far as it used to be for me!

At about 75 yards out from shore, most of the people around me were already up and walking (through about waist-deep water). At this point, I wasn't sure whether to keep swimming, dolphin, or get up and jog. In fact, I did all three, in that order: I kept swimming until I could tell that the people around me were jogging faster than I could swim, then I hopped up, did two quick dives, and started high-stepping it. Nobody around me was in much of a hurry, so I tried to get around a few more people on my way in. Definitely felt that the jog through the long shallows was the most strenous part of the swim, which is a good thing! My swimming is definitely improving, and I came out of the water with a lot of excitement and energy.

I need to think more about what to do in situations with long shallows, especially on the way back in. I should work on my dolphin technique...right now, it's pretty elementary, and not too effective I feel.

Ooooh I love T1!!! From my very first tri, I had read all about how important the transitions are, and I've made it a point to really practice those and nail them on race day. I take a lot of pride in beating people in the transitions...it'll take me a year to knock a minute off my 5k time, but just minutes to shave precious seconds off of transition time that are otherwise wasted in "not going forward" activities.

T1 today went just about perfectly. Even though the jog to my bike out of the water was short, I already had my goggles and cap off, and my zipper down, by the time I got to my bike. Suit came off quickly and smoothly (the addition of liberal amounts of SportSlick around the ankles made a big difference!). I had my tri jersey on under my wetsuit -- first time I had worn a jersey, or any kind of shirt for that matter, under my suit, and man does that speed things up. I slapped on my sunglasses and helmet, buckled up, and unracked my bike. Ran barefoot out of the T-area, hopped on my bike once over the mounting line. Got my feet on top of my shoes without trouble and started pedaling. 11th fastest overall T1, WITH a wetsuit! w00t!

Hit it pretty much right on. Should have focused more on getting my feet INTO my shoes more quickly (see below).

Coming out of T1, I zipped up to full speed with my feet on top of my shoes, the product of leaving my shoes clipped onto the pedals. I used to wear MTB shoes with SPD pedals, which were handy for putting on in T1 and running with, but my new shoes (Louis Garneau) and LOOK pedals aren't good for running around in (slip and fall or ruin the cleats).

Once I got going, I had a little more trouble getting my feet INTO my shoes than I would have liked. Got up to speed just fine, but I think I pedaled too long with my feet on top of them first and kind of crushed them down a bit. A small mistake that may have cost me 30 seconds or so. Still, I think leaving the shoes on the pedals makes for a faster T1, and T2. Will practice that more.

The course was VERY nice and VERY fast. About half was new, smooth asphalt. Large shoulders meant for bike riding. The hills were small and didn't present much of a problem. One short rough patch that almost sent me flying, but all in all a good route.

I started off in my small chain ring and rolled along at a high cadence. I threw it into the high chainring when we turned north and had the wind at our backs. Slowly picked off two or three riders and was passed by about five (including two top male winners near the end of the ride, zipping by from the second wave!). Seeing that my avg. time was over 20mph for the first time in a race, I won't complain though.

About 300m out from the dismount line, I got my feet out of and back on top of my shoes. Swung my right leg over the back tire and rolled right up to the line, where I hopped off and started the long run back to my rack.




Get my feet into shoes faster.

Off the bike, running barefoot across the asphalt parking lot didn't seem too bad. My fast T1 time was balanced by a slightly slower T2, but I'm not complaining, especially since the younger age groupers had farther to go to their racks (we didn't have far to go for T1 though, so in the end everyone still covered the same distance). Got my bike racked w/o problems but had a little trouble with my helmet buckle. Just a one-time thing, cost me less than 5 seconds so no tears here. Got my socks and shoes on without incident and took off to the bike in/run out. HR was up but not excessive. Breathing was heavy and I focused on trying to slow that down a bit.

I'd like to be able to run sprint distance races sans socks...that would save me ~15 seconds I think. Don't have the calluses for that yet though...

Really surprised myself here! Came off the bike feeling pretty good about my day so far, made my way out of T2 at what felt like a pretty good clip. I was breathing pretty heavily though and focused on trying to get that under control. There was a guy right in front of me on the way out that I mentally latched onto for the first few minutes. I hit the split button on my watch so I could time my run splits...I was figuring to run something around 24 minutes. I certainly didn't FEEL like I was running a sub-seven pace, but then again everyone feels wonky coming off the bike. Legs were definitely tired, but I just knew that I could handle 3 miles of it. I just thinking about the marathon (Grandmas) I had just run, and how far that was in comparison. Peanuts! And all of a sudden, mile one was in the books...in under seven minutes! Holy crap! And best of all, although I was hurting, I was nowhere near cashed, as I have been in previous races. Keep going!

Before mile 2, I saw my friend Bert on his way back from the turnaround. We both gave each other some cheers and encouragement. Personally, I was just glad to have seen him on the course at all! He's really fast (ended up in 12th overall), so I knew I was doing ok. That gave me an additional boost and got me to the turnaround. At that point, I was right behind another guy and he could see me coming. I set my sights on him, reeled him in, and went right by with about 3/4 of a mile to go. After a minute, I thought I still heard him on my heels so I picked it up a bit. I NEVER like to look back (I think it is a show of weakness and can embolden an opponent), but when I went around a corner I peeked...and he was nowhere in sight. I had the last stretch all to myself!

Over the course of the run, I had managed to slowly pick off 4 or 5 runners and only get passed by one or two, so I was riding high. The last quarter mile of trail was just PACKED with spectators, and as I was all alone going into the home stretch, they were all cheering for ME! Awesome! I got to ride a great wave of fans all the way to the finish. The annoucer got my number and called "And here he comes, all the way from Ames Iowa...Mike Mullins!" Ok, so it's not quite "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!" but I'll take it (for now...).

I hadn't bothered to check my watch since mile one, but right before the finish I saw the official race clock ticking away: 1:09:44...1:09:45...oh crap! I can break 1:10! I had been shooting for 1:20, so this just blew my mind and I put the hammer down.

About 20 meters from the finish, I took a quick look behind me. Nobody sprinting up on me (thank goodness)...1:09:50...1:09:51...I'm going to do it! I was feeling so awesome -- my best race yet! -- that when I hit the finish, which was in a nice grassy area, I did a forward roll right over the line. Wheee! Did anyone get a picture of that? God I hope so! Regardless, it got a lot of laughs and cheers from the crowd, and from my friends Bert and Flounder, who were waiting for me at the finish.



More speedwork, more hills, more bricks...I can always get faster on the run!

Also, I need to figure out how to do a cartwheel, as it'd be more impressive than a forward roll...

Warm-down? I drank some water, poured some on my head, and went in search of post-race cookies! I found them, along with some delicious watermelon.


I'm still a slow swimmer, but that is definitely improving. My cycling still has a lot of room for improvement, but I feel that I will be able to get much faster, because I really have never ridden that much or that seriously before this year. The run went much better than expected, but I'll keep working on it.

As always, I know that one limiter on my performance is my weight (maybe I should cut down on those post-race cookies, huh?). I've come so far since I first started running four years ago, but I still have an easy 10-15lb of belly that would look much better on Buddha or St. Nick. If I just keep exercising and eating right, it'll happen.


This was easily the best triathlon I've done so far, on all fronts. My personal performance excited me. The course was wonderful, well-planned out, and in an excellent location. The weather was GORGEOUS. This was their first year, but since it was being run by the MN Tri Club, I suspected that it would go off well -- the event exceded all my expectations! Tons of volunteers, great organization, excellent transition area. I suspect this race will get picked up by the TriMinnesota series next year, and for good reason -- they pulled it off perfectly! The race was slow to fill, only maxxing out in the week before the event, but I suspect that this will not be the case next year -- the word will be out!

Especially exciting to me were the number of first-timers at this tri. Before the race started, the announcer asked everyone who was doing a tri for the first time to raise their hand -- I swear that at least half of the athletes raised their hand! This course is a PERFECT first time tri, so I think that most of them will come back for more.