I was nervous about this swim. This was my first HIM and any swim beyond an Oly seemed mystical in some way. I feel like I did a decent job (for me). I wasn't really tired or fatigued at any point during the swim, which was the plan all along. I did have an issue with my goggle fogging up and filling up with water. I had to clear them several times during the swim.

My time is a total guess. Well, not a toal guess - a guy was running up to transition next to me and I asked him what his watch had him at for the swim and he said 44 minutes. I decided to adopt that time too. My time may actually be faster, but it really doesn't matter at this point.

Not get body glide on my goggles!

I have no idea what my T1 time was. All I can say is the run up the hill from the swim to T1 was extra brutal today. When I was in T1 I felt like I was going to throw up. I had to sit down to remove my wetsuit and drink some gatorage before I started feeling better.

If I was to guess, I would say I was approx. 2:30 in T1.

Nodda.

I was feeling so good on the bike. I was really nervous about the hills, but the first loop went off without a hitch. After the first lap, I had averaged 18.8 mph. I felt really good and wanted to pick up the pace for lap 2. However, some of the hills slowed me down a little bit more than the first lap.

Mile 43 is where my race ended. While in aero position, and going down hill, I heard a shotgun sounding pop and felt the rear end of my bike let loose. I knew I had a flat at that moment. I was a little cruched because I thought my pace would be affected by the time it would take me to change the flat. Little did I know...............While taking the tire off of the rim, I saw that the side wall of my tire had frayed badly in one section (approx. 3 inches long). I changed the tube anyways, and as soon as I added air to it, it popped again. It took a few minutes, but it quickly settled in and I realized my race was finished. I can't express how I actually felt.

A deputy pulled up to me almost instantly and asked if I needed anything. I couldn't even comprehend what all he was saying to me because I was so shocked that this even happened. Here I am in my first HIM and now it's over like that. I was feeling so good when this happened.

I eventually came to terms with the fact that my race was done and I asked the deputy to call my wife to come pick me up. My wife arrived with our daughters and they all knew how disappointed I would be. They were too. Amanda could barely look at me when she came to pick me up. I know this is a little dramatic on my part, but I felt like I was helpless on the side of that road and all of the hard work I had put in since May was totally wasted. Devastated, depressed, angry, and sad.

Here's the kicker - I just put on brand new tires yesterday to avoid any flat issues. The tire that I purchased must have been defective. I've thought about whether or not it could have been a bad install. I can't see a tire doing that on a bad install, so i'm calling it a defective tire.

Prior to this happening, I was feeling like a million bucks. My nutrition seemed spot on and I was looking forward to running.

Left my rear tire alone and not put a new one on.

I gathered my things from transition and went home to wallow in self pity and drink beer.