I was real disappointed with this time because I worked hard on my swim and have not swam over 2:00 pace for 100 meters in a long time. I think that the slowness was due to trying to start near the front of the pack and being clubbed hard by the faster swimmers in back coming forward and kicked by the slower swimmers in front coming back. After the turnaround I swam in clear water for the most part and did better.

Todd my coworker and training partner ended up swimming beside me nearly the whole way. I got to the turn around just barely ahead of him but he beat me out of the water by about 50 feet and that's the last time I saw him until the run where he was at least .75 mile ahead of me and coming back from the run turn around. The results say that I finished first in my age group of 6 persons for the swim.

I would start off to the side like I had been doing last year for the wave starts. I also might try swimming further to the outside of the course because it seemed that the biggest pack were keeping a tight straight line bouy to bouy.

Using my HRM watch without the chest strap I timed myself and took times for every segment. My run from the lake to the T1 timing mat was 46 seconds.
I had my shoes mounted on the bike, hanging loose but refuse to ride without socks so I spent time putting them on. I did use the roll the prerolled socks on routine and it worked but the ground was soaked from the rain and I was wet footed as I ran out of transition to mount up on the run.

I need some triathlon bike shoes. The bike shoes I use now are clumsy to strap using the shoe on the bike technique. I believe all triathlon bike shoes have one strap and an integral tongue (no loose sides) that make it easier to close. I wasted time in the first half mile getting the shoes strapped.

As mentioned it took me a while to get my shoes strapped in right and it probably cost me up to a minute. Once I was locked into the shoes I took off and couldn't believe the speeds I was achieving. On a long gentle downhill I was doing 30+ and rocketing past several other riders. I finally hit reality when I reached the first tough hill. I got tired about mile 7 but found new energy by about mile 9 and was able to push hard to the finish. This is my first ever 18 mph bike pace for a triathlon. As I finished the bike and exited T2 I was second in my age group.

It went well but I know that with more training I can achieve an average speed of 20+.

I used the get out of your shoes and ride on top of them routine for the last 100 yards of the bike leg. I got on the left pedal with both legs and coasted up to the dismount line and then sprinted into T2.

I decided to use my fuel belt for the race with just 2 flasks and to strap the race number onto the belt. This worked great but I dropped the empty flasks 3 times and had to pick them up probably costing me 20 to 30 seconds on the run. I was in and out of T2 very fast, just strap on the belt, pull on the shoes, put on the baseball cap and I'm outta there. I did take a few seconds to quickly drink a third flask just before the exit. In hind sight I should have run with the flask and just stuffed it in the belt when it was empty.

I think overall this routine worked very well. I had come into T2 with one of the top age group women right on my wheel (All the women except novices started 3 minutes behind my wave) and I left T2 just ahead of her. Of course she took off and left me in the run.

I felt good coming off the bike and held a good pace for the first half a mile or so but I'm so slow that everyone I had passed in the bike and more passed me back in the run. I haven't done a triathlon run at below 11 pace before but I did yesterday. I did 10:22 pace and I was still looking like I was standing still, in a sea of real runners. I sprinted hard the last quarter mile to try to hold off a guy who turned out to be in my age group but he flew past me. I went past the finish line, looked at my watch time and did a whoop!, because of the 1:26:03 I saw which was 8 minutes faster than last years 1:34:09. My official time was 1:26:04.

I know I need to run more and lose weight to get my run pace below 10 minutes.

I didn't warm down. Last year I finished the race feeling wasted but this year when I crossed the finish line I felt good. I wasn't tired, thirsty, or hungry. I got a water bottle from one of the barrels but didn't open it for awhile. Maybe I should have put more into the segments but when I was doing them I thought I was giving it all I had. I must be fitter than I thought.


I made some mistakes that cost me a minute or two. the problem strapping in can be solved with tri specific bike shoes. The dropped water bottles are probably a result of not using them enough and not paying close attention to them. I wore clear glasses on the bike and dropped them when I tried to store them in my aero water bottle when they became too covered with rain to see out of. BTW these glasses were just like the expensive biking ones but were actually $10 work glasses from a hardware store. No one seemed upset that I didn't stop to pick up the glasses.


I didn't stay for the post race because I knew I wasn't getting an award and I needed to get home. Todd, the guy I work with, did a 1:16 which I find amazing.

I ended up winning the swim in my age group and was second in my age group going into the run. I saw the three guys in my age group who passed me in the run but there was no way I could compete with them at their run pace, all under 8 minute pace. The guy who finished fourth in my age group passed me with about 100 yards to go, I just couldn't drive it home fast enough. I ended up fifth out of six age group competitors.