What is it with me and the swim? This was better than the same race last year but not close to what I could have done.

Push it. I felt good - too good - coming out of the water. This cost me 6 minutes.

OK - A little better than last year.

I beat last year by 2 1/2 minutes, but could have/should have biked harder. My Garmin had lost its charge over the weekend. I swear it was charged before we left for DC - but was dead on Sunday morning. I initially had no worries as my bike RPE pacing should have been natural by now. How wrong I was. I was easily 1 mph slower than I thought I was and it cost me 10 minutes - or at least an easy 5 minutes.

Lesson learned - bring charger for Garmin and check it the night before.

The pacing with RPE was better than it was on the bike. I wasn't worried and it didn't effect me too much not to have the Garmin.

Although I beat last year's time by 1 1/2 minutes, I could have ran faster. I'm not sure what happened but my feet killed me (8 out of 10 on the pain scale). I was feeling sharp pains on the soles and blisters forming on the balls and toes. Never had this happened in 30 years of competitive running but there I was. I kept going, using the pain to push as fast as I could, although It obviously was causing me to change my stride and slow down.

The only change I made was to run in a pair of Mizuno Inspires with 150 miles on them along with the same socks I used at Memphis. My running store thinks the socks are causing the problem with the burning.

Proper pacing on the swim and bike
Painful footwear on the run.


The Door County Sprint and Half-Iron are well run and worthwhile races.