I really love the beach start swims. It just adds to the excitement to run into the water and then start swimming.

As soon as I dove into the water, it just felt awkward and I didn't figure it out until 2-3 strokes in. This is what they mean when talking about cold water swimming. I took a good breath and just went 4-5 strokes without breathing. I did this again and I was nice and relaxed and swimming normal.

Made it to the first buoy perfect, missing the sand bar. I'm having a really good swim and am swimming with good, long, relaxed strokes. Usually at this point in a race, I'm wondering why I torture myself with this foolishness. Rounded the buoy and started for the next. In this stretch I decided I'd take care of the #1 I meant to do at 8:00. I just couldn't make it happen. I slowed down and quit kicking, but all I got was a squirt here and a squirt there. I gave up and realized I was pretty far wide of the course, so I reset my line and headed for the last buoy. I rounded the last buoy and gave it one more try, but ended up stopping completely, treading water to get relief. Swam strong home, grabbed some sand, stood up & ran the long trip to T1 (I think the swim-out mat was @ T1).

Give more effort on the swim. It wasn't until the last leg before I swam at a pace I should have been the entire race.
Take care of #1 before the swim.

Suprisingly quick T1 compared to others (2/21 AG).
I wasn't pressing and decided to not leave the shoes on the bike. I had problems getting in the shoes since I do normally leave my shoes on the bike during training. Also put on the Garmin in T1 rather than on the bike as usual.

Got past the cluster at the mount line and immediately noticed my chain was skipping. I went through some gears on the cassette & changed chainrings, but the skipping remained. It was about every 3 pedal strokes and it would skip, not like it wants another gear (I am running friction shifters), but like somethings just wrong with the chain. I had at least expected to see the rd stretch out at the skip, but it looked fine too. I think about pulling over and check it out, but decide to just deal with it. I'm still passing people out of the park and now have the timing of the skip such that I can soft-pedal it so I don't throw the chain or anything.

Get out on the main road and over to the shoulder. Somewhere between miles 4-5, my chain quits skipping and I can ride with more confidence, but at this time, I'm already mentally into a "comfortably hard" effort. Loose gravel and debris is pretty common and makes for alot of people shifting all over the course and I had to pass some on the main lane which isn't anything I wanted to do too much since it was an open road.

Finally made it to the turn-around and get to reap the benefits of all I was fighting against. It's amazing how good it felt to have a smooth drivetrain going downhill with a tailwind.

Not so good comparably (6'th AG) as T1, but not too shabby for where my mindset was and NOT bringing my shoes with the elastic laces.

Following through with the comfortably hard theme, I start the run at a good pace. While I'm not passing anyone, not many are passing me. I begin to start dreaming ... what if my swim wasn't that bad. Only a few passed me on the bike. While one did have compression socks hiding his age, the others weren't in my AG. If I can hold off any 40-44 dudes on the run, I just might podium ... So I continue on at the same effort knowing that if I have to, I may have something left. After the turnaround, again, it's more down than up and I feel as though I'm flying and really enjoying the shaded trail winding through the state park. Glance down at my Garmin and see I'm about 1/4 mi away from the finish and still haven't seen a 40-44 calf pass me up. I pick up the pace a little knowing that I do still have more if needed and then cruise through the finish chute.

Only question left was where did I come out of the swim. At most, I lost one position since then.

Walked around a bit with my family and triple threaters. Had a hard time settling down without having a coughing fit. It was a good 10-15 minutes after I finished before I could even finish my bottle of water. My only hope now was that I don't relapse back to last week, so I skipped the beer.


Lack of consistent training & being sick the week prior.


I absolutely love the beach start and the sandbar is not anything you normally see.
I also absolutely love the Sprint run which is completely in the park and almost completely shaded.
I'm not a huge fan of the roads. Not completely DA's fault as the road maintenance there is kinda shaky.

I'd race the sprint and probably the Oly here as a fun race, but wouldn't ever race an "A" race or any long course here.