Started pretty much middle front. Quite a bit of contact, but I held my position well. Made it to the fist buoy with the lead pack and I'm feeling real good about my swim. Rounded the buoy and then I reverted back to my pull left swim stroke. Not sure if the wind/current helped me a bit, but I definitely had the normal sawtooth pattern to the second buoy. By then, I had way lost the lead group and pretty much swam in by myself.

I got out of the water feeling good about the swim, despite the jagged navigation on the back stretch.

Swim OWS regularly and get navigation straightened out.

First time to leave shoes on bike, so faster than normal. While not blistering, still good for 2'nd in AG

Peeked at my watch and saw I was 15:0x for the swim, but still thought I swam pretty good.

I had decided I'd race with the Garmin FR60 instead of the 305 so I'd have total time. This meant I didn't have anything on the bike. I'd decided I'd race it completely by feel.

Not long after getting on the bike, I knew it was going to be a long day. I didn't get one of my shoes strapped in before the short climb up to the road, but that was really not a big deal. I did get passed 3 times within the first 2 miles and I was not in a good place. I'm also a little bummed from the 15' swim which didn't help matters, but I pushed on as best I could. I spent this time trying to remember how many races I planned this year and maybe I don't need to do any I hadn't already registered for. Eventually, I got some cycling legs under me and was doing pretty well.

The course isn't flat, but I'm hanging in pretty good. The bigger of the hills didn't give me complete jello legs and only 1 more passed me. I see the first racer coming back down the road, then I see the "stop ahead" sign as I cross the 2'nd & 3'rd rider. It's really cool to be in the first swim wave and count off the people ahead of you (and not get to 20 :) ). At the turnaround, someone was on my heels and then quickly passed me by.

Coming back, it was sure cool to see the road just lined up with racers. I tried to keep the effort as high as possible, but started to struggle a bit more towards the end. Parts of the course I remember flying around, I felt it was hard work and struggled to keep pace. Finally made it to the dam and climbed up and strolled back to transition, feet on top of shoes.

Ride more. I had less than half the ytd mileage going into this race that I had planned for. I've really neglected the bike these past few years.

First time to leave my shoes on the bike. No problems and again good for 2'nd in AG.

Coming out of T2, I was feeling pretty bad. I really wanted to walk, but managed to stay the course. My pace was quite a bit off where I wanted it to be, but I already knew I was going to miss my targets. I kept it together and made it through the first mile. Things started to feel better and I was able to pick up the pace a bit. As the run went on, I got more control and was slowly increasing the pace as I went on.

As the guys passed me, I'd check the age just to see where I was standing. I saw alot of 20 somethings float by, but nothing in my AG. I also saw way too many with no age at all. The bib numbers were there, but that was it. So, I really wasn't sure.

I did manage to keep one guy within eyesight who passed me around mile 1. I was starting to gain on him and thought I had a chance to catch him in the end. With about a third of a mile to go, I picked up the pace to what I thought I needed to catch him. About a tenth of a mile later, I knew I'd not be able to keep that pace till the end so I backed off a little. With the finish line in sight, I tried again to push to catch him, but it was too little too late and I strolled through the finish.

Overall, I'm very proud of this run. I started it crappy and built up throughout the run finishing strong.