The start was a bit rougher than usual. Since I tend to veer to the right I started on the far left. This worked great to the first buoy, but I found myself too far inside after that (as usual) and needed to correct my line a few times.
I never really found a groove, but my time was pretty good. I was a bit wild, but this was the first time I swam full-speed for an entire swim without worrying about running out of gas. This was a higher RPE than any past pool swim or tri, but it had no effect on the rest of the race.

Overall: Improvement of 1:14 from last year. Key focal points were:
-eyes forward & breathing forward: good
-swim tall: OK, forgot a few times
-steady kick: not great-realized several times I was not kicking at all
-anchor right arm straight during breath- not great, and I veered right because of it
-arm cadence- good, but a bit wild


I would probably start a bit farther left: it looks from shore like this adds a lot of distance, but it’s probably not a significant difference. I was a bit flustered for much of the swim- now that I know I can hold this cadence I hope to relax a bit more.

This was a great transition- 1:00 faster than last year. Kept the shoes on the bike and rode without socks. The suit came off very well (liberal use of Bodyglide helped?). Couldn’t run very fast because there were lots of stones and broken pavement, but this transition couldn’t have been much better.



Forgot to grab my gels- no biggie, as I wouldn’t have used them anyway.

I rode big/15 into the start of the climb and flipped to the small ring about ½ way up the first part. I dropped to small/13 for the rest of the climb; I stood up about 20m from the semi-flat section in the middle, sat for ~30sec and then stood up and attacked the second part of the climb (which is a bit steeper than the first part). The execution was great- I was half way up the first climb before I knew it. Felt fine at the top and immediately went up 2 gears to get moving. The rest of the ride was OK- I stayed in the small ring for most of the 6th line, but went big after turning onto #20 and stayed big the rest of the way. Hit the last big dip on #20 in the right gear with a lot of speed and passed several guys I’d been with most of the way. On the 6th line hill descent I stayed on the aerobars for the first half, but the traffic got a bit tight so I went to the bullhorns about ½ way down. Can’t remember the max- it was either 75.8 or 78.5kmph. I felt great on the ride and thought I was performing well, but I was only 0:20 better than last year.

Race execution seemed very good. Results, however mediocre. Something to address by training perhaps.

Not much to report from T2.

My quads started screaming on the first ridiculous hill. I felt good otherwise, but the first 3km were a big struggle to keep going. My quads (esp. the vastus medialis I think) got worse with each bloody hill, but I didn’t have to stop (except for my planned walk through aid station 2/5). I was passed by too many runners to count (some with pretty big numbers on their calf!). After the first hill in the conservation area, I started feeling better and picked up the pace a bit- I felt pretty good for the next ~2km and thought I could make a go of 1:50, but the underpass and last hill leading back into Kelso sapped my strength, so I just maintained pace. A big 10min improvement from last year’s debacle on this course, but overall still a poor run.



I’ve had the same quad-cramping problem on this course 2 years in a row. I’ll have to look at why, and see what I can do in training to deal with this. Side cramps were non-existent: I walked through aid stations 2 and 5 to take full drink. Seemed to work!

A few stretches- felt pretty good after the race. No hands-on-the-knees gasping for breath. Interesting- perhaps endurance is not a limiter anymore.


Seemed like muscular strength the run limiter. Not sure about the ride, and the swim would have been better with a bit more control.


This is probably tought than any of the OLYs I will do all year. Damn tough course- I love this race.