The swim start was sideways on the beach. That is to say that instead of swimming away from the beach, we were swimming alongside it. There were a few of us that were along the frontline, including the stronger swimmers that were treading water. If there were 100 people in our wave, maybe 30 were along the front, with the rest lagging behind in the shallow water. The result was that right from the start, I had clear water to swim in. What a concept!

I have not swum a lot lately, so I started to feel a little fatigue in my arms about 200 meters in. I knew I just needed to ease in and find a rhythm... I was swimming very straight. I would keep an eye on the shore to my right and about every 40 strokes I would sight straight ahead. I finally found the dock where we were to get out, and I guessed it was about 400 meters away. After what seemed like another forever, I was climbing out and running to transition.

My expectations for the swim were pretty low. I was just hoping to see a time less than 30 minutes, and so it was. Let's move on.

Train more.

Kind of a long run for me through transition with my bike. I was the second rack in, and had to go all the way to the other end to bike out. But then again, what can you do? I did waste a few seconds resetting my bike computer in T1... That was just silly.

Not much besides reset my bike computer before the race...

In addition to racing against my age group, I was racing against the others that I rode down with. Two of the three had beaten me two weeks ago at the Four States Triathlon. One of them, my Brother-In-Law, had beaten me by way too much, so it was he that I was really chasing. Brady, on the other hand, is such a strong runner (3:09 Boston Marathon this year!) that I knew I couldn't compete with him. My BIL is a strong swimmer - he had the eighth best swim - so I knew he'd have a four minute or more lead going onto the bike. So I was pleased to see a lot (all?) of bikes on my rack at T1, but I also wanted to find Brent and Brady. Turns out Brady was 7 seconds ahead of me out of the water and 34 second ahead out of T1. As we were heading out on the first lap, I was looking for Brent, but not Brady. I assumed that Brady was behind me. I saw Brent a good ways ahead of the first turnaround. OK, whatever...

My goal was to average better than 21, so I tried to keep the pace at about 22 or so. There was a little wind, so I would go 22+ heading north and 20+ heading south.

At the halfway point, I looked down and my watch said 35 minutes. Pretty well on pace. At the third turnaround, I saw Brent again. This time, I noticed that he was a lot closer to the turnaround, so I marked the distance and he lead was down to about .6 mile. That's about 2 minutes, right? Interesting. Next time I saw Brent, I saw Brady just in front of him. I guessed then that Brady was ahead of me the whole time. But this time, Brent was 0.3 mile ahead.

At the final turn, he was less than 0.1 mile ahead. I could see him all the way in, but I knew that I would not catch him before the end of the bike. But I made up a lot of ground.

However, he killed me on the run in Texarkana, so I was not extremely optimistic about my chances...

The pace was good for my level of fitness. I am slightly annoyed that my pace here was roughly the same as an olympic that I did two years ago. The difference is that I was training in a very dedicated manner then, and this year my training has been extrememly sporadic. To do better, I have to train more, and the priority just has not been there this year.

I saw Brent leaving transition as I was going in, so his lead was down to less than a minute. Hmmm.

The best part of T2 was that there were no bikes whatsoever on my rack. Woo-hoo! First one here! That meant that, in all probability, I had the lead on all the Clydesdales. Good for me.

Nothing. T2 was very good.

With Brady ahead of me, I knew he was gone. However, I now had two races to work on. First, make sure that no big dudes pass me. Second, try to run down Brent.

About a quarter of a mile into the run, and big dude passed me. His number was not near mine, but after what happened to me at Four States, I was not going to take chances. I considered for a few seconds, then decided to pick up the pace and go ahead of him. Once I passed him, I never saw him again. I also passed #165 about a half mile into the run. Did I mention that he and I traded positions probably 20 times on the bike, and that is not exaggeration? As I went past, though, he informed me that I would only pass him once on the run, and yep, I never saw him again.

Turned the first mile in at 7:31, and Brent was still in my sights. Funny thing is, he never once looked back, and there are a lot of double-backs and turns and such where he could have spotted me. All right, At the second mile marker, I decided I would time the gap and try to see if he was getting further ahead or closer. The gap was down to 25 seconds, and my second mile was 7:33. That was good, because I was trying to finish in less than 2:30, and I need about a 47 minute 10K to do so, which is just slower than 7:30 pace.

The third mile was a little slower - 7:50 or so. However, I was getting very close to Brent. I knew that it was just matter of time. About midway through the fourth mile, I patted him on the butt as I went past. He said he was spent - he had stopped sweating - and good luck. I was feeling better than I did at Four States, so I pressed on. Mile four was a pinch faster - 7:40, but now I was flirting with not making it in under 2:30. In the fifth mile, Brady and I slapped hands as he was heading back from the final turnaround.

Not a whole lot else happend in the last two+ miles. They were both in 8:00 pace or so, and the funny thing is that I never felt like I was killing myself, but I could never make myself go faster. A little frustrating, but I suppose that gets back to lack of training. I did finish strong, with a 1:30 last 0.2...

Let me think... Oh yeah, train more. :)

Again, frustrated that my run was not noticebly faster than two years ago. I did, however, obliterate my run time at the Olympic that I did last year in the blistering heat in early July in Dallas...

Drank a few Amino Vitals - what in the world are those? And ate a banana, hamburger, and walked around.


Training volume, pure and simple.


Three major dings on this race. 1) Packet Pickup only 1 hour before race start is too time-crunched. 2) We started about 15 minutes late. 3) At a couple of drink stations on the run, the volunteers were not totally prepared for the runners to come through. That's a nit-pick, but I missed out once...

Epilogue: Brady, my fast friend, was penalized 2 minutes. For racking his bike in the wrong spot! He would have won his age group, but wound up third. He said there was just not enough room for him where he was supposed to go, so he just put his bike wherever. Cheaters never win.