Swam in the 2nd wave. Male AGers 40 & above. Lots of fast swimmers in the group. Stayed at the rear and wide left at the start. Swept right to the 1st buoy where it got crowded and a little physical. From there I continued to stay left of the pack (easy to do since I naturally drift left). I don't have any idea how many people I passed or how many people passed me (I was that far left of all swimmers). Swept right again at the last buoy and then into shore.

Overall a good swim for me. My positioning added a little distance on the swim but that's OK. Much, much better swim than FIT in May. Great swim conditions (the Gulf was calm). Forward sighting during the swim worked well.

Just more swim training with an emphasis on OWS's. I wish I had put my Garmie in the swim cap to see how badly I zigzaged.

I gotta work on this stuff. I always have to sit my fat butt down to put socks on. Gave away over a minute to most of those who finished in front in the AG. Perhaps, racing without socks in the future?

I was slow in T1 but I also was penalized by the course setup a bit. The swim entry and the bike exit were the same. My rack setup in transition was on the opposite end of this exit. So I had to run down transition on swim entry and back out the same way on bike start exit. Not a long distance or a big deal but depending on where your bike was positioned in transition there was a bias.

Practice transitions.

Good bike (for me) as well. Put in a solid effort the entire trip. Flat, fast and shaded with no wind. What's not to like !! There was one place on the course where it got bumpy which surprised me and got me out of my aerobars. On the trip out maybe 3-4 people went past me. All legit. However, with 4 miles to go the train come flying thru. 5-6 guys going fast (23-24mph) close to one another (not much of a gap). What's up with that? I know for a fact the really, really fast dudes at the front of the race were racing legit because I could see them on their trip in while I was heading out. Not those guys.

Nothing really short of making an investment in a bike. My $475 KHS Flite 220 with clip on aerobars gets the job done but the people that were passing me on the bike had some nice bike setups. Not saying it would make much of a difference but at least it sure does look sexy!!!

Ho, hum. Not bad but everybody that finished ahead of me in the AG did it faster.

Practice transitions.

The run wasn't horrible. However, I was a bit disappointed in the results. The "reach goal" was just under 8:00/mile pace. Honestly, I thought I would come in at 8:05-8:10 pace. I ended up doing 8:22 which isn't that great. However, it was really hot/himid out there on the run (no shade like on the bike). Also, since the calf injury I have not gotten the run volume or intensity where it needs to be. On the bright side, the calf didn't give me problems today at all.

It was actually inteeresting and I have never had this happen to me before but...

as I was nearing the end of the race people were cheering and it sounded like they were saying somebody was coming up from behind me. When I heard that I was able to put it in another gear and finish strong. Interesting enough, it didn't hurt anymore when I notched up the effort. Makes me wonder if I should of increased my effort earlier in the run.

Nothing really. I know what I have to do in training to fix this.

1st time doing this event. I thuoght the organizers did a great job and I'll do this race again in the future.