The water was pretty shallow most of the way out through the break. A lot of people (including me), stumbled and fell because of the uneven surface. A racer I know - a very fast swimmer - fell right in front of me. I stepped in the same hole and face-planted. I kind of wrenched my ankle a bit. i tried to stay down and swim, but I was in about 6" of water. Up again...a lot of dolphin diving / duck diving to the first turn. Tried to keep the swim pace manageable and I never really felt tired. Pushed a little bit here and there, but mostly tried to stay on feet and focus on swimming straight. Sighting was good. No real issues w/goggles.

Try not to stumble/fall, wrench ankle in first few steps.

Estimated time (transitions are lumped in bike split). Seemed like it took forever to get the suit off of my heels. Fought with both ankles for quite a while. I've been pulling the suit way up my legs to make sure that I have the flexibility and I think it makes it tougher to get it off. I also forgot Body Glide, so I didn't have my ankles coated.

Make sure to apply Body Glide to ankles.

Typically, I like to keep my HR in the 160s for a sprint, but I wasn't really able to push the pedals. I think the ride before left me a bit flat to race, but it was only a 15k bike and I could suffer through 25-minutes. It was just a drag to not be able to test the disc at full power - at least I was able to get some air into it without blowing the tube this time (I think I got at least 90 psi in it). Anyway...early on, while we were getting into our shoes, I jockeyed back and forth with one AGer I know. He beat me by just over a minute at SuperSeal and I figured it would come down to me and him for 2nd place (another racer was going to be way off the front and I'd never see him). Once we got settled, he got out in front. I didn't want to sit on his wheel and I didn't have enough to pass him, so eventually he just rode away. At our last race (an Oly), he put a couple minutes on me on both the swim and bike and I made up all but a minute of the time on the run. Since I was with him at the start of the bike and he was just gradually getting away, he wouldn't get far enough ahead to hold me off on the run. But I still had to hold everyone else off and I was struggling. I caught a few more people in my group throughout the ride - and of course a lot of people from earlier waves - but the bike never really felt good. One racer came up on me and said, "C'mon, I expect more out of you - haha just kidding" and we kind of rode side by side for a while. I'm not really sure what he was doing. He would get in front of me and then piddle around, eating and drinking, and then hammer out in front of me after I would pass him. I'm pretty sure he was in another AG. Towards the end of the ride, I thought I was actually reeling back in the other rider, but then realized it was someone else in our AG that was out ahead on the swim. I rode into transition in 4th or 5th.

Not climb hills the day before.

Estimated time. Good dismount. Found my rack right away - benefits of walking path of travel before race (finally remembered). Helmet off, socks, shoes, grabbed race belt and visor and was off. No Garmin this time.

This went fine. If I wasn't racing Louisville the next weekend, I wouldn't have taken time to put on socks, but they went on very easily and only took about 5 extra seconds.

Plan was to take it relatively easy for first 2 miles and then push for the last mile or so, but just as I was running out of T2, I saw the guy that had ridden away from me on the bike, so just focused on reeling him in. I caught him in the first mile and figured that I was in second. I didn't wear my Garmin and forgot to hit the one-mile split on my stopwatch. The course is an out-and-back and I saw a lot of people I know and it looked like I had put enough time on my chasers that I could cruise to the finish. I checked through the two mile and I was just over 12 minutes. That was probably faster than "taking it easy", so I just tried to maintain pace to the finish. It hurt a bit, but not too bad. I've felt worse. I looked back a few times in the final 1/2-mile straightaway to the finish and it seemed like someone was closing, but I had enough of a lead to hang on - turns out he was in another AG anyway. As always, it felt good to be done. I was thinking at this time next week, I'll still be in the Ohio River.

This worked out about as well as expected. I'm usually between 19 and 19:30 off the bike and I was 19:15 or so.

Hung out around the finish are and chatted. Walked back to transition to pack up.


Not focusing on this race - riding hills the day before.


Good local race. Numbers were down this year. Big time half marathon in town the same day probably hurt registration. Not many did the duathlon. I'm glad I raced the tri.