I was really hoping for a good swim, except for not wearing a wet suit, all things pointed to me being able to have a good swim. I've made some nice progress so far this year with my swimming, cutting about 15 sec per 100 off of my pool training times and this was going to be in a very protected harbor so it should be a pretty easy course. I was figuring pre race that I should be able to swim about 25 min, when I decided to not wear a wet suit I adjusted, and figured that I should still be able to go 26-27 minutes.

Once we wadded out to the start marker, I tried to position myself on the inside as far as I could. I saw that many folks in my wave were set up much closer to the dock and I knew that on their line they would have a few extra meters to go before hitting the first turn.

Once the horn sounded we were off and I knew that it would be the usual scrum on that first segment to turn one, so I just tried to hold my line and not get too beat up. Once we made the first turn things started to thin out a bit so I planned on easing into my swim for the duration. While I've made some good progress on my form, its still not second nature so I need to think about things as I'm swimming. This ended up being my down fall. I could never seem to get into a rhythm. Every time I settled in and was doing well I'd end up running into someone and it would throw me off and I'd have to readjust. I'd say that I got no more than 75 or 100 meters at most before I'd get jostled and have to restart. This was my biggest issue. My sighting was good and I stayed on line the whole race, but ultimately all the stops and starts cost me valuable time. I think that if I could have stayed in the clear, or had a more "automatic" stoke I could have come in a few minutes or so quicker.

Not too much. I just need to keep putting in the laps, my stoke is much improved from last year and I'm much better at keeping my line so if I can get my stoke a bit more ingrained I won't have to concentrate on it so much and focus more on avoiding traffic and such.

16th OA and 2nd AG so actually a pretty good T1 for me.

It was a bit of a long jog from the dock to T1 not too bad, but it certainly wasn't "right there" out of the water. I came in and found my bike straight away and didn't have any issues with getting the helmet and glasses on. I grabbed my bike and ran to the exit.

I decided to try a flying mount this time. Never done one before... at all, not in a race, not in a training, never. Kids don't try this at home! It actually went pretty well, I used the rubber band trick for the shoes and I had no issue jumping on the bike on the fly. I got up to speed and put the right foot in, pedaled a few more times, put the left foot in, pedaled a few more times and then reached down and closed the straps on both shoes. All in all I'd say it went off without a hitch.

Not much really, 16th OA in T1 is pretty dang good for me. I did forget to grab one of my gel packets that I planned on eating, but it wasn't a big deal. My hydration was Ironman Perform so I had some calories, carbs and electrolytes there.

Ah the bike. My biggest limiter from last year. As mediocre as my swim was last year, my bike was worse. I tried to focus on the bike over the winter and this was my first race to test things out.

I was a bit disappointed as my 404s had to stay home. I hadn't looked at anything beforehand (stupid, I know) and when I was gearing up on Friday I found that my wheels (tubs) wouldn't hold air so I ended up using the stock wheels.

As I mentioned, I didn't have my watch so I was really ridding blind... no data whatsoever. Going by feel wasn't too bad and I think that overall I did pretty well. The course was most flat, although there were some definite areas of false flat, but no real hills at all. I never really pushed too hard on the ride but felt like I put in a solid effort the whole time.

In the end it seems as though some good strides were made on the bike. 21+ MPH for the 40K is pretty darn good for me, hopefully I can keep on building from there.

Check my gear in advance, the stock hoops might have cost me a minute. Other than that, nothing. All in all I was happy with my performance, much improved from last year.

49th OA, 4th AG solid T2. Did my second flying dismount and it went really well, actually better than my first last year at Reston. I came out of my shoes a bit early though, when we rounded the last corner I immediately undid the straps and came out of my shoes, but I misjudged how far away from T2 this last turn was so I road maybe a 1-1.5K on the tops of my shoes, not ideal but not too big of a deal.

I did end up going down the wrong aisle coming into T2 but that only cost me a couple of seconds since I realized it right away. Racked the bike nice and easy scuffed my feet on my towel to wipe off most of the grass while taking off my helmet, pulled on my shoes, grabbed my race belt and gel and I was off.

Learn how to count so I don't go down the wrong aisle, otherwise nothing this was a solid T2.

This is where not having my watch did the most damage. I'm not the fastest runner, but this is my strongest sport and I'm really pretty focused on the data while I race to make sure I leave it all out there. Today the best I could do was go by feel and see what my last mile split was... not ideal.

The course was pretty flat and easy, although there was one funky section where you had to make one turn and stay left but your next turn was a right so you had to decide on your own when you were going to drift across the street (looking for traffic of course since the road wasn't closed). Kinda weird for a race, but I rolled with it.

I was planning for 6:45s for this race since it was so flat, but in the end I only managed an even 7:00/mile pace. I felt like I was putting in the effort but without knowing my HR and pace along the way it was tough to gauge and I know that at the race finish I wasn't "spent" enough thus I could have done a bit better.

It seemed like every mile, as marked on the course, I'd look at my regular watch and see a split of 7:05-7:10 and think ok step it up a bit. Then I would feel like I was dialing it up a notch only to find at the next mile marker that I ran another 7:05... WTH? Once we hit the 5 mile mark I just put the hammer down and picked up the pace. I made some time up in the last 1.2 mile stretch but even then when I hit the line I didn't feel my usual "I need to go throw up now" feeling so I knew I had even more in the tank.

Not mess up my watch and drain the battery the night before. I left a bit too much in the tank and it cost me some time.

Walked around for a bit, ate some pizza, drank some water and cheered on some folks.


Not being able to get into a groove on the swim and not being able to monitor my performance on the bike and run. I think that these things cost me a few minutes, and you can throw in a minute for the lack of race wheels.

I will say though, I'm pretty happy with things overall for the first race of the season it was a solid performance. Could it have been a bit better? Absolutely, but don't we all think that, no matter how well the race goes?


Another great race by SetUp, these guys do a fantastic job and I love competing in their events.