The water was surprisingly cool which made me happy so that way I wouldn't overheat. The swim was good until the last 500 yards or so when I swam into a bunch of not only the Mini clydes but the sprint clydes too and it was like a washing machine, I got kicked, punched, elbowed and clawed at. I started throwing my own elbows, oh wait, I might have when some ginormas mammoth tried to swim over the top of me after grabbing one of my legs and pulling me backward. Other then that it went well, and I felt comfortable, even in the washing machine. The swim itself was probably faster then the listed time because the hill from the lake to transition was long and steep, seriously I thought the transition at Deer Creek was long, it's got nothing on buck creek.

Swimming more often may help.

Amazingly my wetsuit didn't get stuck this time and Mike (Tri Dad) was in transition yelling at me to hurry up as he was sauntering out of transition - the best part, the announcer called Tri Dad out for sauntering.

Nada

The bike we all know is not my strongest, especially considering the lack of training that I have put in on the bike so I'm actually pretty pleased with this bike result. This is a good average pace and if I can hold this for Rev3 I'll be excited. The hills weren't too bad and I made my bike work for me and about half way through I remembered, duh, you can stand up and climb hills, it's way easier that way. I had a couple of exchanges with Tri Dad as we leap frogged throughout the course which was fun. Turns out Runningflyr caught me in the last half mile - although I didn't even know he was there. The only other notable thing about this bike ride was that I had to pee the entire ride! I was devastated to reach the bike aid station and NOT see a porta-potty. Because I had to pee so bad I didn't want to drink much, this would end up wreaking havoc on my run, that and having to stop and pee right out of transition from bike to run - oy vey.

Simple, bike more.

It's T Time

Nada

And this is where it all fell apart. As I mentioned I had to stop right after coming out of transition, this I believe was the beginning of the down fall - so to be fair my run time does include a 2 minute stop to pee in which the peeing part took long enough as it was but then I was wrestling to try and get TP off the role - nightmare - but because I stopped for so long that didn't help anything. Also because I had had to pee the entire time on the bike I didn't drink hardly anything and was able to stomach a gel but by the time I hit the run I was really hot and really thirsty. I watched three ladies in my AG pass me on the run and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I ended up walking two of the aid stations and walked for another 30 second stretch on the way back. Like I said, the wheels came off and I feel apart. A Far cry from where I was last year when I raced a mini.

I think I need to pay attention to my nutrition more closely, I was definitely underfueled and underhydrated and felt like I was going to pass out at the end. Additionally, it seems that I have lost my running mojo. I think I have some type of mental block or something, even in training I'm having a hard time getting sub 10 minute miles. This run was a mental defeat and that makes it even worse. Hopefully this doesn't do too much damage to my already fragile running psyche but I'm not promising - this was a disaster.

Posed for some pictures with Runningflyr at the request of his Mom who was here visiting for the weekend from out of town.


Poor Mental Toughness and Lack of Training.