Worst swim ever.

Freezing water. Hopped in pre-start to acclimate myself to the temperature. Swam some lengths and felt okay about it. After being in the water, we were asked to get back on shore before the start. I was shivering I was so cold. Teeth chattering shivering. Start goes off and I cannot keep my heart rate down. Breathing is off stroke is off nothing going right. Breast stroke for a bit then freestyle. Mainly breast stroke until 250m then I'm able to calm myself down a bit and got into whatever groove I could get into and started swimming freestyle. Final 350m was allright - not good but allright.

No idea.

Bright spot here. Shaved ~1.4 minutes off my last T1 time. Decided not to wear socks on the bike which meant I didn't have to get socks on wet feet. Note to self: no more socks on the bike.

Nothing. It was a pretty good T1 for me.

I was killing on the bike. I felt great - I was nailing shifting when I needed to, cadence was great, even the hills were pretty good. Some great downhills allowed me to really get some speed up and keep it up for a while on the flats with the big ring. Got passed by a dude just before mile 8 when I noticed he had a BT.com temporary tattoo on his right calf. I caught back up to him and Donmck and I chatted for a bit.

Shortly after he powered away, I noticed that I was bouncing a bit on my seat. It didn't feel right - looked at my rear tire and noticed it wasn't as pumped up as it should've been. "Hmm", I thought to myself, "I thought I pumped the tires up before the race." A couple of seconds later, I look down at the tire again. Even less air this time. CRAP! I've got a flat! I had been doing so well on the bike! DA*M!

Pull over on the side of the road. People are whizzing by me, people I was in front of! Some guy rides past, asks is I have everything I need. Thankfully, I do. Out comes the tire lever, off with the old inner tube (fought with it for a bit), on with the new inner tube, back on with the tire. Hook the CO2 cartridge to the valve and it inflates it only halfway. Halfway! Oh no! I couldn't remember if I had put another cartridge in there after my last flat tire. I dig around and sure enough, there's a spare. Whew. Filled it up, tire back on bike, shoved everything back into my seat bag, and off I go.

Though I didn't time the tire change, I estimate it took me about 7-10 minutes. Not great, but this was the first time I had to do it in a race situation.

7 minute flat change: 36:58 bike segment = 18.18 mph
10 minute flat change: 33:58 bike segment = 19.78 mph

NOT GET A FLAT TIRE!

Good T2. Put the socks on my feet at T2 instead of T1, so this was a bit longer than my last tri, but only by 10 seconds.

Nothing. Another good transition.

New PR for a 5K!

I thought it was pretty hilly. Left shoe came untied just past the 2nd mile marker. Somebody tried to muscle past me in the last .1 mile. I couldn't let that happen, so I really turned it on and surprised myself.

Nothing. Outside of having to retie my shoe, it was a great run! I mean c'mon! I got a new PR out of it!

Walking around, water, bagel, banana, Hydrox (fake Oreos, though they were really around before Oreos...)


FLAT FREAKIN' TIRE!


I was really disappointed by my swim time, but I think I can chalk some of it up to the cold-ass water. The flat tire really blew serious chunks but that's something that I can put down on my "have done" list: change a flat tire during a race. I really wish I would've hit the split button on my watch so I could've known how long it took, but I estimate anywhere from 7-10 (maybe even more) minutes. I felt like I was really smoking the bike and the flat tire made me all the more motivated to hammer the remaining part of the bike and nail the run.