Easy early, with TT start and point to point, targeting bouys is not as important as just going downriver. So able to keep spacing from catching/passing others.
Felt like I was slowly passing people left and right, under a few bridges then see the finish. HR and breathing never got out of control, just was in cruise control, not sure if it was the current or just a good day but I'll take it. No speed suit, just because.
Was fun to not sight as often since finding turn bouys was not important. Sighted mostly to prevent catching slower swimmers and giving myself enough time to swim around. Did get tapped on the shoulder by something, too murky to see so just kept digging,,, floating log from the wastewater treatment plant?
About halfway through the swim, I feel the wristband fall off. NOOOO, how am I gonna get a Big River Beer at the finish? The thought haunted me for the rest of the race. Who cares about getting back into Transition for my gear, I will need beer.

Speed suit since I carried it with me. No biggy.

T-1 time added to bike time, so guestimated based on Garmin overall road time on the bike
Exit water and run up wide stairs to get to T-1, I skipped every other and bounded right up. People walking? come on, this is a race. T-1 is long, not only from the water but you have to run all the way up the street, enter, do a 180 and run down the grass to the bottom, then find your rack.
Got there fairly quickly, socks rolled right on, shoes on, watch, glasses, helmet, sprint. Hit the mount line and run around 3 others trying to mount, so go up about 10 feet and then flying mount, gone!
Proceed to adjust helmet/glasses, watch, etc at speed instead of in transition.

I love running out of Transition in my mtb shoes with socks and flying. #1 I can run faster in those than barefoot and #2 I tend to be pouring on the pedals as guys are still messing with slipping their feet in at speed

Spun up the hills, took it fairly easy to keep the HR down and not burn the legs. Pushed the downhills and maxed at 41mph for 1 minute stretches.... Ended up leapfrogging with a guy from mile 16-finish but not even close to drating. I'd get him on the downhills and get a gap of 200 feet, then he'd reel me in and pass about halfway up the next climb and gap me by 100 feet. My guess is his carbon bike vs my aluminum bike... Ended up in T-2 about 5 seconds back and leaving t-2 with 15 second gap. Sweet, since he had a rack right on the end and I had to go halfway down, then back up.

Starting so far back in a TT, it was fun to see how low of the #'s I was passing on the bike, started in the 900's, then 800's, then 700's, then some 600's (M/W 50+ group) but hey, must have passed over 200 bikes on course and only got passed 4 times (10 if you count the leap frogger).


Push the climbs a little harder? On the whole bike course, got passed by 4 riders so overall, good effort. Only 1 was a higher bib # and he got me within 1 mile of T-2. Awesome

Big bottleneck while running with the bike. I love Transition cause I can sprint through them wearing my mtb shoes but we were single file down a chute of about 50 feet, and ended up having to basically walk cause it was too narrow to pass 5 people.
Get to rack (EMPTY!!!! what a feeling and sight to see), shoes off, shoes on, race belt, gone.
Estimated T-1 time as it was in the Run portion.

Good out of T-2, no rubber legs or any ill effects, HR in check so the last 2 miles on the bike were good enough to recover. Caught Mr. Leap frog about 3 minutes out of T-2 while climbing the hill and said hey Mr Leap Frog, let's go. Well we talked about food for a bit then I pulled away.
Grabbed a water towel from the first aid station and wrapped around my neck for the remainder of the run to keep cool, it made a HUGE difference. I must have looked stupid but hey, I look stupid in tri gear anyway and comfort is key.
Passed a couple of Team In Training Ladies so as I passed, I sang out, TNT, it's dynamite, TNT.... They got a laugh at that. Just having a good ole time.
At the turnaround, the mind started to wander and then around mile 4.5, the mental gremlins came back begging me to walk. Soon, found the stairs and had to walk down them because of a guy in the front was hobbling down them, must have had serious leg cramps, bummer. Got to the bottom and the 12 of us that bottlenecked on the stairs fanned out and ran off.
So get to the crest with about 1/2 mile to go where it is all downhill and MR. LeapFrog starts to pass and then tells me to pick it up and latch on. I tell him that I have no energy to draft so save me some pizza and he takes off for the line. Given his lower # and 3 minute TT head start, I figure no way he can gap me so I let him go, like I could have prevented it anyway? I was able to stay within 15 seconds, nice. But there was no sprinting to the line for me, last .2 on the garmin was at 7:00 pace

did not wear a hat, at West point I did and overheated so ended up carrying it. Maybe invest in a visor instead. The towel was awesome though.
Also, work on tempo and race pace to have the energy to negative split the run.

Found a chair and sat in the shade drinking about 30 oz of water. Then collected myself, headed over to the food tent, begged to get in because I didn't have my wristband so the lady just put a big red mark on my arm. Proceeded to get a beer, a tasty amber, a banana, chips, oranges, etc. Cleaned up Transition and headed home.
Good race - best at this distance yet. Pacing felt right, not quite sprint speed which had been my undoing the first few oly's.


WOW - what an event, post race activities, food/drink/organization, run course support. Most festive race I've been to yet. I was leary about a downtown race but this one is just awesome. Tons of volunteers, organized, they have their stuff together. Just wish my AG started near the front, not back of the field but as they say, someone will start last.