Seeded myself again to the inside as the current went from right to left ... wanted to make sure that I did not have to fight the current to keep on track of the first turn buoy.

I again made sure that I was one of the last people in the water and again made sure that I kept my HR down by walking into the water and swimming gently for the first 100-200 yds.

Swam into the inside of the buoys going out as I did not want to fight the crowd nor the current on the outside. Despite the direction of the chop + waves, it turns out that the current was not much of an issue.

Sighting was pretty good - only got slightly off course twice, but was easily corrected.

Drafted off of people and people drafted off of me (what were they thinking?). I didn't stay with those I was drafting with as they were swimming a different pace and I was determined to race my own race pace ... otherwise I was afraid I would either push myelf too hard or feel like I was slacking off.

Did not kick but twice throughout the entire swim ... and that was more a warning to those drafting off of me that they were a little too close. (One touch is an accident, two is negligence.)

Did not catch waves in as well as I would have liked, but did remember to put my feet down as the waves receded so that I would not go backwards.

Left the water and ran up the beach to where the high water mark left a ledge. Promptly fell down trying to scale it in front of God + country ... and laughed!

Jogged up the chute towards T1 and spent too much time in the shower rinsing off the sand + salt (dumb use of time) but for some reason I thought it was important at the time.

Thinking that I am leaving some time on the table by waiting to be the last one in the water. For the next race, I am going to step into the washing machine and see if I can shave a couple minutes off my swim time.

Also think that I could have pushed my pace a little harder as I left the water feeling relatively fresh.

Okay, so I had a picnic.

My T1 time is horrible! I need to remember that this is a race and transition is nothing but minutes ticking off the clock ... minutes that you have to work hard to regain on the race course.

I was more concerned about basking in the moment, keeping my HR down and not forgetting anything for the loooong bike ride.

Put on my bike shoes, helmet, grabbed my nutrition, strapped on my Garmin and ran out of transition looking forward to the ride.

Stopped to get slathered in sunscreen by the volunteers ... who, bless their hearts, just piled gobs of it on and did not spread it around to cover the exposed skin.

Saw some more of my TNT peeps cheering for us along the sidelines and felt great knowing that folks were out there rooting for us!

Light a fire under my ass.

It was here that I saw the level of athletes that competed in this race. In other events, it was a rare occurance for me to be passed on the bike as I would commonly pass people with various levels of carbonized equipment.

Here? Athletes had the toys and had the legs to use them. Absolutely stunning pace and levels of endurance ... plus love the sound of the disk wheels as they approach - whoosh, whoosh, whoosh - and pass.

Instead of being demoralized, it made me want to train harder and better so that I too could ride in the 23-24 mph range over a distance such as this.

Couple draft packs along the stretch leaving the beach and then along the course to the turn around. At one point I was blocked in behind some slower riders as I could not pass to the left due to the long line of riders sucking the wheel in front of them.

Needless to say, this made me mad ... not only was I blocked in and my time suffering, but I also had to push myself harder to go slower than those who were able to suck the wheel in front of them. This is the I will remember the next time I officiate a race and will not feel badly about writing someone up to ding their time. Drafting is cheating - period.

That said, I thought the officiating was well done throughout the bike course. Saw officials writing 'tickets' numerous time where it was obvious that the person was guilty of a position violation. The problem was that there were not enough officials on the course.

At Powerman Alabama, there were no less than 5 or 6 of us on motorcyles monitoring a course half the distance. Here? At best I saw three different officials to cover a course twice the distance.

The number of officials is determined by the race director. It is my hope that the race director asks for more officials next year.

Speaking of position fouls ... there were numerous people who refused to ride to the right and/or decided to ride side-by-side. This caused huge traffic jams as two riders can effectively block an entire lane.

Was going along the out + back section passed the bridge and there was this guy riding side-by-side another rider. The other rider was not riding along the rightmost portion of the road and as such the lane was jammed ... and riders were stuck behind.

The wind was going and/or this guy was hard of hearing b/c it appeared that he did not hear the cries of "ON YOUR LEFT". When he finally clued in and moved to the right, the rider in front of me passed him and then half-wheeled the offender, causing him to jam on his brakes.

This pissed off the offender, who then started to hammer to catch up to the other rider (who was just plain too fast). I hammer after the offender and told him to calm down, ride his own race and not blow himself up over something he has no control over ... and then reminded him to ride on the right prior to dropping him.

Got to the turn around and realized that both bottle drops + turn arounds scare the bejeebers out of me. Too many people weaving in and out in too confined of a space. (Friend who came down from Charlotte got cut off at the turn around and wiped out, giving him a nice stretch of road rash to remember the race by for the next week or so.)

Ride back was just like the ride out. Saw a guy who was riding in aero along a straigh away but had his hands loosely together as if clasped in prayer ...and thought that to be an excellent idea to ensure that your arms and upper back were relaxed.

I looked around the race course + then at myself and saw that I had a death grip on my aerobars as if I was pulling myself forward. I loosened my grip and relaxed, noticing that by doing so had no affect on my pace (meaning that gripping tightly on the bars had little impact other than wearing out your arms + back).

Saw Janelle (Runnergirl) on the bridge and was happy to see a smiling face (she always has a smile). The headwind back to the beach was cruel as it slowed my down to 16 mph for the 4-5 mile stretch ... and by that time I was ready to get off that @#$% bike.

Overall, the bike was a good leg for me. My goal was to finish with an average speed above 20 mph and yet have legs left to run.

Nutrition - boy did I goof that up! Best laid plans never work if not executed correctly.

Not saying that I had the best nutrition plan - because I'll never know if it would have worked as I just plain forgot to drink 2 of the 3 bottles of Accelerade. I also forgot to take my Endurolyte tablets. I dropped my banana nutbread Clif block - only solid food I brought on the bike leg - due to the horrible road conditions ... hit a bump and it just shot out of my hands.

Ended up drinking 24 oz of Accelerade that was in my aerobottle and 2-3 24 oz Gatorade drinks from the bottle drops. Also ate 4 Accel gels that I had taped to my top tube.

I don't have a final tally of the calories consumed, but don't think that it was sufficient to ensure that I had fuel for the run.

I need to remember that planning nutrition for training rides is just as important as the ride itself. Sure you might be able to do the ride without a great nutrition plan, but that doesn't take into account a long swim nor the long run afterwards.

Rookie mistake.

Not a bad transition. Quickly got my helmet off and shoes on. Ate two Cliff Shot Blocks + took two Endurolyte tablets.

Drank enough on the bike that I had to use a port-o-let ... but they were all full! Ugh!

I did not mind this too much as it meant that I was properly hydrated for the run - and it was starting to get hot.

Ran out of transition and the timing mat did not beep. Double ugh!! Went over it a few times before a spectator told me that it did not beep for any of the participants.

Pee on the bike.

Thought the damn thing would never end. Felt relatively good with my normal mid-8:00/mi pace at the beginning and kept it until mile 5 or 6, then felt significant fatigue.

Running form went to pot - and it was not good to start with! Had no legs for a good heel kick, foot strike was too far forward and posture was wrong ... but found that it took too much energy to fix it, so I just muddled through.

Saw some of my TNT peeps along the course and did what I could to say something encouraging + smile ... but inside I was definitely losing steam. I tried to pull one of our peeps who normally is a strong runner with me for 1-1.5 miles, even walking with her for a couple blocks, but she didn't have the legs + urged me to move on.

At Mile 9 I did some Ole Miss math with creative rounding and told myself that it was just a 5k left. I didn't believe me as Mile 10 and Mile 11 were pretty damn dark.

I had paced a guy from Dallas (judging by his tri-club shirt) that was in my age group from Mile 8 to 10, walking through the water stops together. At the end of Mile 9, he didn't pick it back up.

Feeling guilty I turned around and told him that I had been pacing off of him for the last couple of miles and that we should run together. We ran together until halfway to Mile 11, where he just dropped back.

While I too was at the end of whatever I had in me, I knew that the TNT tent was just down the road and that I had to finish strong ... finish strong for the coaches that gave so much to us over the past 5 months, finish strong for my 8 yr old son (who asks me after each + every race whether I finished and if I did the best I could), finish for our honored hero (who at the age of 9 endured 24 months of cancer treatment, including chemo that just wracked his body), finish strong for my friends and family that dug into their pockets to support a great cause in furthering cancer research + patient assistance and finish strong for my wife that put up with so much over the months ... including me missing Mothers Day.

As I ran up to the TNT tent, I do not think that I could have smiled any bigger ... I had a smile in my heart as I saw the coaches + friends cheering for a strong finish.

A friend had a beer out, grabbed it and chugged at least half of it down prior to handing it back - did not want to cross the finish line with it b/c I thought I would be dinged for 'outside assitance' ... in retrospect- who cares!?

The damn finish line was further from the tent than I thought, but kept my pace up ... which is good, because I saw our swim coach on the way back and did not want to have to swim some extra laps for slacking!

Ran through the finish line and some young hottie grabbed my arm to help walk me through the rest of the chute. I started thinking to myself "Gosh, do I look that bad?".

Grabbed my medal and then walked/stumbled back to the TNT tent while cheering folks on along the way.

Not walk through the water stops, have a set hydration plan and not stop at each water stop under the guise of getting water so I could "rest" and - most importantly - ease off on the sponge use as my shoes were soaked and felt like they were 5lbs each!

Drank 5-6 beers at the tent and cheered on the rest of the TNT'ers - as well as other participants along the way.

Tried to eat a slice of pizza, but the stomach was having none of that ... so beer was my food.


Lack of running over the 3-4 weeks prior to the race. I tapered for St. Anthony's because it was my "A" race ... this on top of left calf issues that developed two weeks prior to St. A's meant that I had not run on a consistent basis leading up to the half-marathon.

Need to work on running posture and foot strike as well as beef up my interval training + re-establish my LSD distances.

Overall, though, the run was just 9 minutes off my half-marathon performance in February.


Well done race ... volunteers were absolutely awesome - especially the Bobtail Cat Cheerleaders who ranged from age 5 to middle schools. They were absolutely awesome.

The only improvement would be better road conditions for the bike and more USAT officials to break up the draft packs.