During the announcements the Kenny from 3D announces the course is accurately measured from the yellow start buoy to the last orange buoy. I was standing there thinking why the hell are we starting on the beach having to run out a couple of hundred yards to the start point, and the same goes for the exit. The course should be measured from the beach or have a water start at the yellow turn/start buoy if that's where the measurement is taken from.

I had swam this course on Thursday and Friday for short swims and did my landmark search on where to adjust course direction,etc. The course has been pushed out further since last years event allowing those of us that embrace the swim get to deep water and avoid the walkers. Last years crash and injury prevented me from racing so I had to have new site marks.

I followed my plan and trotted easily out to the swim start when the gun went off and got into deep water and swam. There were lots of others but I managed to have minimal contact. Had to work my way around some and did my usual of swimming away from the buoys to avoid the mess once out a ways I was on my own the way I like it except for the occasional swimmer with really bad navigation skills who swim all over the lake.

The water was real nice and calm to start but I noticed a little chop developing at the turnaround area but it didn't cause any issues for me.

Pretty much kept my pace nice and easy and used my normal bilateral breathing.



Nothing

T1/2 was a bit further then other years but only added 20-30 seconds to total time. I like the setup better.

I knew the winds would be blowing out of the NW and have ridden this course enough to know where it would be tough and where to make up time. I rode this course well for my lack of training. I knew riding out Monument and coming back on River Rd that it would be tough with the wind, once I was heading back to town I'd have it a bit easier. When we made the turn around on River Rd I was surprised how tough the wind actually was as I didn't feel as I was getting a real great push while riding the other way. To prevent the blow up of my legs on the run I dialed things back and just rode the small ring for the most part on River Rd. My lack of riding was evident and I wanted off the bike ASAP.

Actually train more. Overall I thought I paced this well for my conditioning.

Nice quick T2. Didn't see my running hat so I found that had blown down several spots, so K on my way out.

Just kept this nice and steady throughout and figured if I had any gas left I'd pick things up on the way in after making my last turnaround. Once I did get to this point I was happy with just keeping it steady. Aid stations had only a couple of volunteers each but they were kids from the local cross country team and did a real nice job. With the two loop setup my second loop was only 3 seconds slower then the first. Steady as she goes.

This was the first year the run distance was dead on. The other two years it was off considerably.

Do more training. Seems to be the theme of this report.

Felt somewhat crappy when I finished, which is normal for me. Ate an apple, drank a Muscle Milk and a Starbucks iced drink of some sorts. Grabbed my stuff with K and headed back to the trailer.


After being busy with volunteer work for a week and then another week of training for work I hadn't done much work for this race and wasn't to concerned about it. I knew I'd finish, it was a matter of how long and painful would it be, that was what had me concerned before the start as it had been a good 4 weeks since any solid training and that wasn't even that solid due to some on and off knee tendinitis.

Besides the wind this would've been a pretty good day for a PR.


Love this race course and it was nice to have friends and family around for the weekend. The Tawas area is very nice and I hope we can make it back next year. 3D of course didn't have any officials on the bike course. There excuse this year was the volunteer motorcycles didn't show up, I doubt it was ever setup. I only noticed a little bit of blatant drafting and not the pace lines of years past. The numbers for the race looked to be the lowest since the first year. I think that 3D is charging more and really not offering much more for the money, thus the 3 star rating and not a 4. The after party is nice due to all the prizes and we always win a little something there.