Swim seemed longer than the advertised 1500m. My start wave was HUGE so I was bumping with people pretty much the entire way! Made it hard to get into any rhythm and find my pace. Felt like I was fighting the whole time.

Long run from the swim exit into transition. No real hiccups during the actual changing part. I did put on my race belt as instructed in the print out and saw a few others who also followed directions. "Iron Jack" is so anal about everything I didn't want to risk a penalty.

OK, so this part sucked. I started well and was holding a good pace until about 12 miles into the ride when I flatted. "Well, there went my race," I thought as I changed the tube as fast as I could. This was only the second time I've changed the tube on this bike so I wasn't as quick as I could have been. Nonetheless, I was back on the road and pedaling after a few minutes.

After smashing a couple miles with angry pedal strokes, I was nearing the bottle exchange. I probably should have slowed down more than I did but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. I reached for the first bottle...dropped. The second bottle. Drop. The third bottle and my last chance of having water for the last half of the ride - catch! Need to remember to slow down a little next time.

So now I figure I'm close to being back in the hunt for a decent time despite my flat. I've been working the bike really hard to gain back some time and I've re-passed almost all the people that passed me while I was changing my flat.

And then I flat again! Come on!! This time, I'm without a spare tube and CO2 (used those for the first flat). I figured I was about 8 miles from the end of the bike and pretty much resigned myself to walking back. I hadn't seen any SAG/mechanical support.

So I'm walking along as far right on the shoulder without walking in the grass and pushing my flat-tired bike as others are whizzing by. Pretty soon I hear a frantic female voice behind me, "Oh Shoot!" (But she didn't say "Shoot") Some lady runs right into me! Our bikes go sliding down the road and she falls off and rolls a little. Surprisingly, I'm still standing, stunned. She apologizes profusely and the normal nice-guy thing to say would be "it's alright," but it wasn't. It's not alright that you just ran into me and my bike at 20+ mph! What the heck were you looking at? How far up the road are you looking? And why are you riding dang-near in the grass?

Her apologies of course fail to repair my flat but a magical SAG wagon just arrived on the scene so she scampers off with a final, "I'm so sorry!" Yes, you are. Me and the SAG guy BS a little about what just happened while we change the tube and get my bike rolling again.

More angry pedal strokes. Of course at this time, I knew I was completely out of it. I figured I would at least be able to get a 10k run out of the race. I've definitely had a very adequate warm-up!

I finally rolled into transition after all my adventures out on the bike course and ran away as fast as I could.

Not flat. Twice. Pretty sure I could have posted a 24mph split if I didn't have all the extra excitement.

Considering I had an OK swim and a miserable bike, it was redemption time. I started out at a comfortable 7:15 pace and turned up the speed until I got to Cameron Park. The hills slowed everyone down but I felt much better going through there than I did last year. All those hill repeats must have paid off!

Pretty sure I passed the bike-wrecking lady at the turn-around point. She said something but I was very much not happy to see her so I followed my mom's advice and didn't say anything at all.

In the last third of the run, I noticed I had re-passed quite a few 25-29 men. Not bad. I had a pretty good kick for the last 1.5 miles and finished strong.

Pizza, Oreos, water, pizza, banana, stretching.


Flat tires.


I don't think I'll be doing an Ironhead race again. Jack's angry tone is too much at 5:30am for me. His personality just rubs me the wrong way.