I came into this race with no expectations and there are usually a bunch of HS swimmers that are part of relays that jump out in front. My plan was to start up in front and go wide and let the HS swimmers go by. I went wide after the first 50 yds or so and saw one swimmer go by so I jumped on his feet and figured I'll let him pull me around. I got into a nice easy groove and as we approached the first buoy I did a couple strokes on my back and saw that we were 20 yds in front of the pack. Hmmmm, back to drafting. I stayed on his feet until I started tapping his toes every 3 strokes and figured I'd let him draft me the rest of the way. I went around him about 1/2 way to the 2nd buoy and didn't feel him hit my feet at all. As I rounded the 2nd buoy I turned over and saw that he wasn't even near me. Well, at least the swim leg of this race will look good. I swam until my forearms were touching the sand and stood up and ran up the beach as the announcer said "Our defending champion, Bob Stocks, is out of the water first!". I veered off my path a bit and said to him "It's a damn good thing that fat floats!"

Train more and swim faster but no complaints with this swim. It may have been a bit longer than 800 yds.

This was a pretty good T1 for me. The speedsuit stuck on my heels a little and I decided to put my shoes on rather than race to get them on before the hill leading out of the park.

Practice transitions more. Otherwise nothing.

It's never a good feeling to feel the burning of lactic acid on the first hill climbing out of the park. I came into the race with a good plan of just having fun and make it a training day. Coming out of the water in first must have triggered the competitive side of me but that side wasn't listening to the rational side that knew how little training has been going on. My HR was in the 170's and I was hammering way too hard for how slow I was going. Jason, the eventual winner, passed me just before the descent into the first turnaround. I passed him going down the hill and as we turned around I said "This will be the last time I see you so enjoy the motorcycle escort." After that, he was gone. The next guy passed me going up the climb and I told him that I was gravity challenged going uphill but watch out on the downhills. The first downhill I went by him as I patted my belly and smiled. He passed me again going up the next big climb, as he passed I was singing "What goes up, must come down. Spinning wheels, got to go 'round...." :-) He crested the hill a ways ahead of me but I noticed he was pedaling down the hill. I hammered up to about 35 mph and just got into a tuck and closed the gap. As we approached the bottom of the hill I was approaching him at a pretty high rate so I threw it in high gear and pedaled past him probably 12-15 mph faster than he was going. The speed carried me up the next hill to the turnaround and I never saw him get very close after that. I settled into a comfortable cadence heading up the biggest climb and as soon as I crested the hill I was gone. Took my feet out of my shoes, had a great dismount and there I was in T2.

Train more. Settle in to a comfortable cadence, I wasn't in shape enough to really push the bike.

Nothing special. Not great but not bad.

Practice

Going back to the fact that I haven't been training much I didn't expect anything out of this run. My plan was to hold a steady pace throughout the entire run. People in T2 were shouting that the leader was only a few seconds ahead and I can catch him. I asked if I could borrow their legs to catch him but they wouldn"t go for it. As I approached the inlet that we had to run around I saw Jason across the water and I shouted to him "JASON!! WAIT UP!!!" He didn't listen. I got to the damn dam and stood to the side and waited for the escalator. I told the worker there that I had asked them to put an escalator in last year and he replied "Budget cuts!". Up I went. Poured some water over me after taking a quick sip and headed across the top. I saw Jason coming back and he looked good. At the turnaround I saw Larry gaining and knew I wasn't going to hold him off. Next I saw JC Colling and he was gaining. There's my challenge! I knew JC had a good kick at the end of his runs and if he was going to catch me I was going to make him run a sub 6 min mile to do it. Larry passed be at about the 2 mile mark. He looked back a few times with about 1/4 mile to go and I said "I'm not going to try anything, don't worry!" I was actually thinking about trying something when he looked back but decided against it. In hindsight .......... hmmmm ......anyways. :-) Came across the finish in 3rd place, 4 minutes off last years time. Ugh!!

Train more!

Walked around, congratulating everyone. There were a lot of club members doing this as their first race and I wanted to see them all come in. We were definitely in force out there!!


Lack of training.


This a great venue that is run by the county parks dept. Unfortunately, there were no volunteers and the park employees just didn't have the same enthusiasm as volunteers do. They do a fine job, don't get me wrong. I think this race will get bigger and much more competitive in the next few years. I predict the Sled Dog (Tim Andrus) will win this race next year, I hope to give him a little run for his money though!