This was a great swim. I took it easy on the first loop and just cruised. Didn't find a draft, but there was pretty clear water most of the way. I hit every buoy so I knew I was going straight. After starting the second loop I felt great, so I picked it up just a bit while keeping everything pretty relaxed and smooth and really lengthened my strokes. When I exited the water, I felt totally relaxed, wasn't breathing very hard, and heart rate was very low. I had no coughing at all during the swim, which is amazing given the bronchitis issues I'd been having and each short swim I had done over the past two weeks resulted in violent coughing.

Nothing, this swim exceeded all expectations.

This was a long uphill from the pond to T1. I knew I'd struggle with breathing/coughing if I hoofed it, so I walked the entire hill (probably about 300 yards). Once I got to my transition spot, I was experiencing some brain freeze trying to figure out how to proceed, and the notes I had written helped. I still took quite a while to figure out how to get everything on and get the bike started.

Based on how I felt when I woke up in the morning, I had decided to abandon my thoughts of pushing the bike in favor of taking it easy and seeing if my energy would hold up. I spent the first 30 miles on total cruise control, barely working into Z2. At mile 30, I felt ok, but the general energy level was dropping so I stepped it up just a bit but not too much. I did negative split the bike, but overall this was the easiest effort ride I've done all year. The big problem was that I didn't drink my calories or eat my Clif bar. More on that in the post race comments.

Not too much, but given the run was so bad anyway could I have shaved some time here by pushing and still had the same run?

I made s'mores for everyone in my rack and caught up on some email while I was in T2. Seriously, T1 I expected to be slow due to the hill, but what the heck was I doing in T2? I still don't know what could have possibly taken this long. I guess my brain really was on vacation.

I saw the clock on the way out of T2 showing 3:36 and knew even a 2:04 would get me my uber goal of 5:40, so I knew 9:20 miles would get me there. I was right on track through about 10k, in fact a bit ahead. Then I started slowing down a bit. It was great that I had hooked up with someone running his 6th HIM and wanted to run at the same pace, so we were encouraging each other and just running together. I didn't really have any leg or muscle issues, I just had no energy. Starting around mile 8, I began to get lightheaded, and at the mile 10.5 aid station, I dropped to the ground after getting water. I spent about 20 minutes eating pretzels and resting until I felt ok, and then walked and ran the last 2.5 miles to finish.

Drank lots of gatorade, stretched a little, let my boys wear the finisher medal, and enjoyed the turkey dinner.


Not signing up for the aquabike?

I retrieved my bike out of transition and found that I had only drank very few of my calories. Apparently when I took the last draw on the straw and it was empty, I was using the water straw but thought it was the calorie drink straw. Maybe this was the cause of the huge energy drop on the run. Or maybe I just need to swim/bike/run more and be fitter!


This was an awesome race top to bottom. Well organized, great volunteers, super course.