First off I elected to go in the last swim wave as I realize that I am a slow swimmer, I feel I am a strong swimmer but not all that fast.

This came back to bite me as the race started at 8:30 and my wave did not go until about 9:00 or so, in that time the water went from a light chop to down right choppy. Let me say that this swim kicked my butt. As I went out I was starting to pull away from my wave which is what I did last time but I ran into a swimmer from the wave in front of me and got kicked just below my ribs on the side. This broke my rythym and I stopped to regain my composure. As I did this I tried to take a breath and ended up inhaling a large amount of water. This really sucked, I was having a real hard time catching my breath as I was coughing up both my lungs. I seriously considered calling over a kayak but the race director made it pretty clear doing so would result in a DQ. So I tried to fight through this, and went on to my back to catch my breath. Way too choppy for that to work and I ended up drinking more lake water. I continued struggling to the first turn buoy where I may have cheated a bit and rested by hanging of the buoy for a couple of minutes. Once I regained my composure and wind I headed across to the second turn buoy. I was doing much better but was mixing alot of breast stroke in to and at points it felt like every 3 strokes forward I was being pushed back 2. I was very happy when this swim ended to say the least.

They didn't give a swim split but a swim + T1 split which was 26:03, this was about 5 minutes slower than my July time for the same 800 Meter distance. Although I think I was likely even slower than that as I don't think my T1 time was 5:03 like it was in July, I felt I moved much quicker than I did last time. Not real pleased with this swim but given the lake conditions I shouldn't be too disappointed.

Not exactly sure, but need to better prepare for rough conditions like this race had.

I felt this was much better than my last race but this race didn't provide a split for this so I can't really say for sure.

The bike was difficult and really hilly by my standards, 2 seperate steep hills, and numerous small but challenging ones. I expected that and was mentally prepared for those as I had ridden this course numerous times the past couple of weeks. What I didn't expect was the extremely upset stomach I had from overexertion and drinking so much water during the swim. This passed after I cleared the first major hills, but never to the point where I felt I could drink my gatorade, and the thought of eating my GU, well turned my stomach just thinking about it. Either way I still did the course faster than my training runs but not as fast as I hoped. I think this was largely due to the fact the last half of my ride was directly into the wind which was very strong at this point.

Averaged 14.2 MPH, which is slow but the conditions were tough (not sure how people can hold 20 or 21, amazing IMO). Not happy, but not dissapointed either. Next year I need to focus on improving speed, I don't think I push my self hard enough on my rides, and I think this shows in my HR never really holding past Z2 very often. I need to get comfortable pushing it harder to avg faster speeds.


Like I said above I need to train harder to increase my avg speed on the bike. This is going to be a focus area going forward.

This was tough as the ground was wet and I was slipping all over the place running into T2 until I got to the grass. This is an improvement on my last race so I am happy.

If there is a portion I am happy about it would be my run. Last time I ended up having to walk portions of the run. This time I was able to run the entire thing with each mile faster than the previous one. I averaged a 10:40 minute mile over the course which is faster than my last event. Should have pushed harder but was afraid I was going to run out of gas based on how I did last time. I had more left by the time I crossed the line.


The more I analyze this the more I think I could have gone harder, but was afraid to run out of gas. I was happy that I paced this better than last time in that I didn't need to walk any of it but I think I could have been faster. Will be training the run alot over the off season.

Walked around and hugged my wife.


I was gassed coming out of the swim and I think that impacted the rest of my race. I need more training.


I thought this race was well run. There was plenty of food at the end, and lots of door prizes. The atmosphere was great, I will be back and hope to do better.