It's odd lining up towards the front. I still remember myself as a crap swimmer... but I've been holding my own the last little bit. That said, I lost a little time doing open turns at the walls, but still had a good swim. Seeded myself perfectly.

Well duh, swim more.

slower T1 than last year :/ Not sure if my feet are just not as tough as they were (lots of gravel to run through in transition) or if it just took me a few more seconds to get grooving after a "harder" swim pace.

Stop dawdling and get to work.

So yeah, about the bike. Well, all is going as well as you can expect when you are dragging a boat anchor up a hilly @ss subdivision open to traffic and with two intertwining loops so the fast cyclists and slow cyclists move together... when what happens???

I am climbing on of the hills, out of the saddle when I pull on my base bars...and they yield to my awesomeness...oh, stems a bit loose huh. Once the immediate fear that I'm going to die or sh*t myself (or both) leaves me, I realize it's not yet to the point of failure, just a bit loose. That makes yanking on the bars a no-go, but I am not slipping much just laying low... so onward I go (ahem... this is a point I should take to say "do as I say and not as I do... this isn't safe or smart) and fortunately all holds up well.
At the last turn I notice a mountain biker coming up the (first) hill from T1 doing the "oh crap" wabbles. He cuts directly in front of me at the worst possible moment and I most certainly would have endo'd had I not been on the felt (for once being heavy came in handy) when I locked up the brakes. I yell some not so nice things at the volunteer/cops about doing their job directing traffic...
Second crisis averted. Back to Transition with me.

Well, One last good look over the bike might not hurt when the bike hasn't been on the road in a few years :P

Again, slower than last year.
I could not get my foot into my stupid Zoot's for some reason. You know, easy entry sock racer... entry so simple a monkey can do it...
yeah, sometimes I wonder if I evolved or not.

Figure out how the shoes I've owned for over a year work I suppose.

Run course is vanity measured. I wasn't running 5:xx min/miles.

Out on the run. Short and hard... I won't candy coat it, it sucked. I lost my old race belt somehow, so I was forced to use my mega geeky Fuel Belt Vengeance! Which, as it turned out, was pretty f*n sweet. I could just have volunteers throw water at me while I drank out of my "pods." Yeah baby, science!

I come back down the last of the run and start sprinting... then, I remember that David had told me he wanted me to go hard in this race... hard enough that I might blow up and walk part of the run. So, 25-30meters from the finish line, I stop running and walk it in, nice and slow. I got the added satisfaction of trolling everyone there yelling at me to keep going. :P

Chris - 1
Newbz - 0

Ok, so walking for 30 seconds probably wasn't all that intelligent as a whole.

Otherwise, hopefully not get injured this year and have a real "run focus" after Augusta. You know, to get faster and stuff.

Got a browbeating from the family, hung out, joked around, had a talk with timing about my time (they had me 7 minutes faster on the run... yeah... not happening) and got my award.

40" faster than last year. That's encouraging considering some of the stuff I have had to deal with since this race last year.


Being a grade A Douchebag.
Getting hurt last year.
Loose Stem
Bad Transitions
Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space
Any Metallica Song


I like RDE events. This one is one of my favorites for obvious reasons. That said, the timing confusion was a bit of a pain, but otherwise it was a good time.