Another tough swim for me. This was probably the most physical swim I've experienced to date. I can't even begin to count the number of times I was kicked, hit, or had to swim over someone. I believe it was primarily due to the confines of the reservoir. I felt like I was stuck in the pack for the entire swim. Whenever I did find a clean line, I either swam up on someone's feet or another person would come into my line. It really messed with my ability to establish a smooth, efficient stroke. On the upside, I had good visibility sighting and felt well cordinated into my stroke cycle.

Maybe try to go out stronger to get ahead of the mass, but I was really worried about going out to hard and "blowing up" due to the elevation. I still had bad memories lurking in my mind from the Tahoe swim.

This was my first race that I've ever done that has seperate transitions. T1 was a remote transition next to the lake. So, in addition to making the change to the bike, we had to bag all of our swimming gear to be transported to the finish line. No real issues. Suit unzipped and one sleeve removed. Cap, goggles off and contained with the removal of the other sleeve. Short run in the dirt to transition. Lower half of suit off. Helmet, socks, shoes, and camelback donned. Running mount out of transition. Passed a couple guys right out of the chute who were "dicking" with their pedals at the mount line.

I need to work on donning my helmet while stepping out of my wetsuit.

Despite the elevation, I felt good on the bike. One exception was coming out of T1 when I went to get out of the saddle and my legs felt a little rubbery. Everything was going well until a guy in front of me decided to get on his brakes during one of the technical descents and wandered into my line. I tried to correct, but was unable to change lines in the sand. I went down at about 15 MPH. Fortunately, I was able to ride it out on my side and hop back on the bike (rewarded with some nice road rash on my hip, thigh, and calf). However, I had to finish the last part of the descent with bent bars which made some of the cornering a little tricky.

I was holding back just a tad because I knew the hardest part of this course was yet to come. I felt really good on the technical descents and very aerobic on the long climbs.

I rode well. I was just under 6 minutes off the fastest bike split.

I had to laugh. So, I go to put my trail shoes on and realize that I was missing my insoles. Oops, I left them in my street shoes. Nothing I could do now, so on went the shoes without insoles. It was kind of like running in racing flats, but on rough, nasty, dirt terrain. Visor on, two Endurolytes, and donned race belt while on the run.


Not forget my insoles.

While the total course only had about 800 feet of elevation gain, the climbs and descents were brutually steep. I had to break a couple of the climbs into walk-run segments to keep up my momentum. Then, just when I thought I could get back into stride, I was faced with a steep, rocky, and loose descent that required me to side step down. There were very few spots where I could actually open up and run. Just to get an idea of the course difficulty, the fastest run time was 33:33. I feel pretty good that I wasn't too far off of this pace.

I really need more hill work. I would like to be able to attack some off these huge grades without falling back on a walk-run technique.

Nothing special. Just walked at a light pace for about 10 minutes.


Swim. I just really need to focus on improving my swim. It might be time to head back to the swim coach.


Very well organized race. Course was well marked. Plenty of volunteers. Very friendly. Lots of swag included with entry.