After starting too fast in the last few OWS races I lined up outside the pack and started with a nice relaxed stroke. Did not have any anxiety this time, but had no one to draft off of. Probably could have pushed harder after the first turn. Psychologically this was good for me as I now will have more confidence in next OWS.

Push a little harder after the first 100M

Since this was off road and I saw all the deep sand on the cycle course I decided to ride with socks/running shoes and changed out to rat trap pedals to make dismount/mount much easier in the deep sand areas. Thought I could run in the running shoes later and reduce T2 time. Time to get socks and camelback on delayed me some.

maybe go with clips and loosten them up more so it is easier to get unclipped.

Seat post was not tight enough and kept sagging on me after several bumps, ended up stopping about 5 times for seatpost adjustment and once to put Garmin on my wrist. Besides about 8 times to dismount and run thru sand pits.

crank down on seatpost, put on Garmin in T1 or T2. Maybe ride hardtail next time to increase speed.

My strategy of riding with running shoes did not work out because I had too much sand in my shoes to comfortably run so I had to take off shoes and socks and switch into Zoots.

Maybe tough out the run with sand in the shoes.

Happy with my run but pace was considerably slower then the 5K I ran the previous day. Did not stop for water as I chugged lots from camelback on bike portion and was not feeling overheated.
Was shorter then I expected, had another buddy say he had gone about a mile off course because trail was not properly marked.

Nothing

gatorade and watermelon, washed off legs in lake.


Mountain bike. Seat post kept dropping and rode my dual suspension bike with rear shock that can't be locked out. If I do this again I need to test out the old hardtail to see if I can ride it faster. Also need to not be screwing around with Garmin in the middle of the ride.


After last weeks race this one was set up and started on time. Plenty of kayaks but the two motor boats exhaust seemed to be piped right in my lungs. Preliminary results were posted quickly. Post race food and drink were a step up from the previous Iron Head races I had run. Jack awarded first place in my age group to a 55 year old and gave me second but that was resolved with the other guys later. I thought coarse was marked well but others got lost. Suspect some riders may have skipped second loop in cycle.