Was feeling a lot of nerves before the start of the swim, and I'm not sure why. They started in the morning and wouldn't go away. Once the horn sounded then I was fine, but standing around just made me anxious.

I started at the front of the water this time and pushed hard for the first 2min or so, because I always seem to get trampled if I start in the middle of the pack. This worked well after a minute or two had pretty clear water. I was actually swimming to the right of the main pack but I think I had a better line to the first buoy.

Never had any issues with getting caught up with other swimmers, and when catching slower people in the earlier waves I got around them without incident. My one issue is that my swim stroke gets lazy when wearing a wetsuit. I don't kick enough, and focus on just swimming with my arms. Need to work on that more.

Nothing really. I continue to swim at this pace in the races, but I felt good for this swim and am happy finishing 12th. That said, I continue to give away far too much time in the water.

Had the wetuit, cpas and goggles off before getting into transition, but my suit got stuck on my timing chip and I struggled to get it off my left leg + the strap on the timing chip got mesed up and I had to fight to get it back in place.

9th AG in T1

Just need to be faster - giving away more time here.

So this year I raced naked on the bike - meaning I had no data. For some unknown reason my powertap died the day before and the head unit won't pick up the transmission from the hub. I wasn't planning on wearing my HR strap so I saw no point in putting the Garmin on my wrist just to get speed data.

Felt good on the bike, and passed a number of people in earlier waves. Also got passed by some strong cyclists, and they make it look easy (even though I know they are putting out a solid effort). Got chicked around the 15km mark and decided that I was going to try and hold her pace for the remainder of the ride. She then passed about 3 other guys who decided to then hang on her wheel while I sat back about 100M. I could only laugh when an official on a motorcycle rode up on them and sat there watching for a few minutes. Stats sheet showed that 4 people who finished around my final time all had 2min penalties - little bit of justice.

What I really noticed on this ride was that on the short, quick, steep inclines (less than 300M) I get left behind. People power away and I don't have the same kind of acceleration, or ability to recover quickly. With about 6km to go I lost my pacer girl as she and her draft pack left me behind after a hill. I didn't see her again until the run.

Work on building some climbing strength for shorter hills. Long and gradual works well for me - short, steep, quick, not so much.

Much better transition in T2 and everything went smoothly.

Tied for 4th in AG in T2.

Nothing.

I put in a solid run and was happy with the result. First km my stomach was not feeling good and I was in some pain. Luckily this cleared up and I was good to go for the remaining 6km. I did wear the garmin for the run and my pace picked up after every km, finally dropping to a 3:57 pace in the final km.

This was deja-vu with last year as I saw my training partner at the turn around point on the run, and I was about 40sec back. I just couldn't close down the gap. With about 2.5km to go I got passed for the only time on the run by a 20 year duathlete - I asked him to try and pace me up to my buddy, but when he increased his pace I just couldn't go with him. I was maxed out, but I appreciated his effort.

Nothing really. Some more running time over the off season and hopefully I'll be a sub 4 min pace for 2012, just in time to move up to the 40-44AG.

Not much. Tried to strecth a bit, but mostly walked around with the family and a couple of friends.


Nothing. Half Iron training has obviously helped me race a shorter distance well, and I'm happy with the performance for this race.


Always like this race, and since I can stay at the inlaws I treat it as though it's local to me. Good venue and lots of fun.