I knew I would do well in the swim and needed to use it to my advantage. I did. You dive in 2 at a time. Within 4 strokes I had left my partner in the dust. Pushed it a bit harder to start to get a nice rhythm going and it worked. I have absolutely no idea how many people I passed but I know it was a lot.
Probably the one thing I don't like about Time Trial starts is that you are always having to pass people. A LOT of people. My sighting was great. I learned quite a bit from watching Mark at Galena. I always knew where I was and I always knew when I was coming up on someone.
The swim, overall was perfect.

Nothing. Don't think I could have done it any better.

Transition was much bigger this year, therefore, there was quite a distance from the Bike Out to the Mount Line AND it was uphill so I did what everyone else was doing and just ran up to the mount line, got on and went.

Maybe run a little faster up from the swim out. It is about a 75 yard run to transition uphill. However it was also VERY muddy (more on that later) so I didn't want to wipe out.

I knew there was a headwind on the outbound part of the bike so I planned on pushing it a bit harder than normal, trying to keep it as close to 19 mph as possible. I also knew I had to attack the hills to keep the pace up. This all paid off. When I turned around to come back, I was absolutely flying.

I knew I had the chance to get well under 45. My goal was 40-42. Not too far off from it. I pushed it harder than I've ever pushed it.

Push it just that much harder up the hills, especially into the wind. I knew I had plenty of time to recover and get the HR back down. But other than that, I'm pretty happy with it.

This went incredibly smooth until I left T2. I had my number on my race belt the entire race, tucked into the back of my shorts. Reached back to untuck it, and move it around to the front and broke one of the damn holes. This slowed me down later. Will have to change that to tucking into the front of the shorts and then I will only have to pull it out and leave it alone.

Tuck the race number in the front.

So since it had rained cats and dogs the night before, the first 1/2-3/4 mile was incredibly muddy. Combo that with me fiddling around with my race number and the first mile was WAY too slow. That being said, I did negative split it and continued to get faster with each mile (8:38, 8:10, 7:51). Wanted to do closer to sub 8:00 which I did 2 years ago but it just wasn't in the books. I know I can go faster now I just need to figure out how to do it. There is something in my mind that continues to keep me too slow.

Run faster.

Walked around with Beth, Becca and CJ. Saw Dan (SprintDA) and John (jdwright) and then waited to find out if I qualified for Budapest or not. It seemed to take forever. They finally handed out the AG sheets and there it was, I was 17th. Better start planning cause I'm going on a big ole trip to represent the USA!!!!!!!!


Something in my head that keeps slowing me down on the run.


Eric Sarno, the RD, puts on one of the BEST races I have ever done. I'm up to 17 races and this one is just SO well run. From the time you register to the time you cross the finish line. Well done Eric. You deserved this as a qualifier. Congrats on another fantastic race.