My wife's comment was that we looked like a fast moving feeding frenzy of seals. I've never been in a washing machine that lasted past the first 200m, but that all changed today. I was getting knocks and bounces until about 50M before the end of the course. I understand there were people with sighting issues but this was ridiculous. Full on smack to the head at one point and arms to the ribs and hands on my feet almost the entire time. Regardless, I got out by what I could see as 5th in my wave, and I felt like I'd swam great given the conditions. I was puzzled by my watch, but I knew I'd done well and notched it up to 'figure it out later'.

Not much. I sprinted off the gun and was on a good line, with decent form. I didn't lose my cool getting hit every 10 seconds. I'd like to practice buoys more, as I could pick up a nice body length if I do it right and change my luck getting hit significantly

Everything going great, and if "Getting up to speed and into shoes" wasn't included in the T1, it would have been great (11/85 AG). Unfortunately this is where everything went very very bad.

Nothing. I was a well oiled machine.

I jump on the bike perfectly timed, and I'm ready to KILL, my best of the three. Go to put my feet in and I my bike tire skids...huh? Oh well, I'm fine, correct, try again. Skids again. WTF? Have to pull over to the side, I'm about 300 yards into the course and something is wrong.
REAR FLAT.

I'm not in the shoes yet, so I throw the bike on my shoulder and start running back to the transition area barefoot. A CO2 shot won't take care of this, I'm thinking. The crowd thinks I'm running into T2 and someone yells 'hard core!!' I don't correct them. Get to the bike tent and let them start to check it out. They were fine, but they were not prepared for this. No tubes, no nothing. They stare at me blankly. Finally I say just fill it, screw it, if it flats, it flats, if not, I ride. I yank my shoes out of the pedals and strap up while they're doing this, I don't know why. Just need something to do. They get it up and start to check the wheel for true, finally I ask if it's holding, they say yes, so I grab it and start running back to the mount area in my bike shoes. Damn.
After I mount I look at my watch, I've lost at least 6 minutes on this crap. DAMN.
Man, I just do not care now, I start SHREDDING. I pass EVERYONE I SEE, I am MAD AS HELL. I get about 5 miles out and I swear it's moving around on me back there. I pass a guy and ask him to take a look - he says it looks alright, just maybe a little loose. I don't know what that means. Screw it. I'll be light on the corners I guess. SHRED. I am ripping it up. If I see you, I pass you. I'm not looking at my computer at all, I don't care, this is all feel.

Honestly, nothing. My tire was fine that morning riding in, fine when I checked in. I don't know what happened, and I was happy to see it flat later that afternoon so I could eliminate sabotage.

My time is reflecting the official record of my actual ride, the time spent fixing the flat, and my actual T2 time. I'd guess my T2 was about 2:00 given where my bike was and the fact that I was sketchy about doing a flying dismount not knowing whether I was riding a semi-flat, so I was running in bike shoes. If I take those 8 minutes (6 for the flat and 2 for the T2) off my total recorded time, that puts my ride at a blistering 33 minutes. That's about right :) Too bad about the flat!

I need to figure out how to thaw my feet on the bike. Frozen feet for the first mile on the run.

I admit, I wasn't running very hard because I knew I wasn't going to do well because of the flat. I saw plenty of bikes from my heat coming in to transition despite a great ride, and it just wasn't going to happen for me today. I'm a little pissed I didn't gun it anyway just for kicks, but my mind was clearly distracted. I ran for pleasure, and had a nice time.

Focused regardless. I passed up an opportunity to try and gun the 5K just to see what would happen, with no stress of place, and I didn't take it. Dumb.

Banana, water, a little electrolyte, then a beer :)


A flat tire.


I will definitely be back. I loved the venue, and the race was very very well organized and attended.