I had another rough start. I guess I'm just not a big enough a**hole lining up for these things. 2 strokes in and folks are cutting in front of me, forcing me to swim over them. *sigh*

Much better than I normally do. My suit got a little hung up on my feet again, but with size 12 feet, it happens. I also wasted a couple seconds putting on a jacket. Temps in the high 50's, so I was pretty sure I'd be cold for most of the race without it.

2 flats...40 minutes diff between the Garmin and the race clock

I flew out of transition and made it to the loop with an avg. speed over 22mph, hit the first hill with an avg. near 21 mph and completed the first full loop near 21 mph. The second loop was going strong and I made it through the 40 mile water station feeling great. But I heard a noise as my bike was breaking free of the Gator-glue that was splashed all over the road. Sure enough, a flat tire. I managed to get it changed (no shoulder & plenty of folks telling me to stand in the bushes to change my tire...really?)
I got fired up and decided to crush the last bit of the leg so I could have a gnarly story to tell .. 5:04 -- AND I had to fix a flat!!

Well, after the last water station, my bike started feeling loose again, so I stopped & tried to top it off with a CO2 blast. Made it another mile before it went low again, hit it with the last of my CO2 and made it another half-mile. So I stopped and had an officer call for the SAG wagon. I pulled the wheel off, got everything ready for a new tube, but no SAG wagon. I waited quite a while and finally gathered everything up and started walking. A couple minutes later a kindly, older gent stopped and gave me a tube and the use of his pump. I got things fixed up and made it to transition with no further drama.

Put the Gatorskins on the race bike. I actually had planned to use Gatorskins on this race, but when the course got revised last week, I swapped out rear wheels so I could go with a 12-25 cassette instead of the 11-32 the bike came with. Being a bum, I didn't swap the tires, so I had the stock tires on the bike & they are not very tough.

Not too bad, for me. I probably should have gone faster, but decided to stay calm and get my mind ready for a killer run.

After spending the better part of 40 minutes of the bike leg repairing tires and waiting for support, I was pretty rested. So I took off with the intent of having a great run split and reeling in as many of the folks who passed me while I was on the side of the road as I possibly could. I ended up with 42 Age Group "kills" and felt great for the first 10 miles, until my shoes got so soggy that my feet were sliding a bit.

Walked over to the food tent and grabbed a water and a lemon/lime soda. Wandered around a bit and then grabbed some more liquids.


Poor tire selection and not enough tubes & CO2 cartridges in the tool box.


I thought it was a good race. I agree that it would be nice to have a closed course for the bike, but I only had to slow down once for a vehicle, so I have nothing to complain about.