Velcro strap for garmin came loose and came off in first 30m. Had to stop at first wall to tighten it. Came loose again after 25m. Had to swim holding it in my hand the until the wall at 100m. Luckily I was wearing my tri shorts that have a velcro pocket on the back so I stuck the band in my pocket for the duration of the swim. During this time the guy behind me passed me - ugh... I did pass a person or so. Swam hard to try to get past the one guy that passed me, caught up to him by 150. Swung out to go around and he picked it up a bit. We were both passing people, sometimes going three across on the pass. After another attempt or two to swimg around him, I just hung onto his heels and stayed in the bubble trail for the rest of the swiw - HA! I got to draft a pool swim!

Put on the wrist strap at T1 or T2 - thought it would work, but that was too much a pain to deal with.

It was a long transition out of the pool, up the little hill and then to the bike. It was a first come first serve transition and I didn't pick the best spot, all the in and outs were on one side and I was three rows back of it... No socks on bike, grab and go, did a push and hop on the bike at mount line!

Pick better spot

Twenty mph wind out of the south so I am pretty happy with the mph. Worked to keep HR in upper RPE 7. Barely cracked into RPE 8... On the headwind leg, with the slight uphill it was 14mph. With the tailwind with the slight uphill was 25mph! I tried to keep pushing the pace as hard as a could even with tailwind!

Not much, I was pretty happy with the ride. Maybe push a little harder!

Gotta tighten up the cleats on my left pedal some more or replace the shoe cleat, every time I try to un velcro and ride on top of the shoe as I come into transition, I pull the shoe out of the cleat. Oh well, something to work on. Took time to put on socks for the run as I didn't want to blister before the more important race next Sat.

Fix bike shoes and go sockless

Pacing was an issue, I wanted to run too fast. Under 10min pace and then walk a bit, repeat til done... Sprint in to the end. Saw Holly on my way out and Trina on the back in - yelled encouragement out!

Keep working on run conditioning and pacing. Run is always the lowest rank compared to my AG and the other parts of the race.

Found Holly. Talkd to Steve (Trina's husband) Moved out to about 50 feet from the finish line to cheer Trina in - just stayed there, cheering in everyone. It was funny - told everyone I say - OK, you can smile now, there is the finish line -almost everyone of them got a big smile on their face!

I had another friend at the tri that I used to work with 10 years ago who was doing this as his first tri (well he did an indoor one, but I told him that didn't count :) ) I hung out to the end of the race and ran in with him the last couple of hundred yards! I am proud of Grant for gutting it out as he was one of the last people on the course. He wants to do another one!


Usual culprit - me!


This race has real potential - the roads really need work though. They gave away tons of the prizes after the race - gift cards and stuff from sponsors like boot camp certificates and hour long massages, etc! It was cool! The smaller number of competitors gave it a real clubby feel - I was diggin' it!