This swim was kind of ridiculous, since the tides were such that you could pretty much run all the way to the first buoy. Since I am a much better swimmer than runner, this meant that but the time I could start swimming I had all these faster runners in front of me that were not good swimmers. That being said, it was not hard to go past them. There was some contact, but nothing too serious. After I cleared this pack, I found fast feet in front of me and drafted for 100 meters or so, until the guy started slowing down and I went around him.

I did the swim at a moderate effort level and felt great once I was done, my plan was to hammer the bike, and I was ready to do just that.

The reason for the plan was this: Nick from work, who is 11 years younger than me and a great runner, said I was not going to be even close to his time. Given my competitive nature, I asked what he meant by "not even close". We settled on 3 minutes. Under those conditions, I had to push the bike like crazy to gain enough time on him so I could give back some time on the run.

I came out of the water in front of Nick, but since he could run quite a bit on the way in and on the way out, he was only 10 seconds behind me.

Nothing, executed my plan perfectly

After the exit from the swim there is a long run to transition (almost 0.25 miles). I know that I have to conserve my energy and not sprint, so I saw Nick blow past me on his way to T1. Luckily, I was much faster in the actual "transition" part and left a couple of seconds ahead of him. Only to have him mount his bike a couple of seconds faster than me and lead out on the bike.

Nothing

On the first half of the bike we had a headwind, so I put my head down and got to work. I did not want to get myself in a position in which I could not push on the way back, so I went hard, but keeping some reserves in the tank. I passed Nick after a mile and he stayed pretty close to me until the turn-around. When I finished the u-turn I saw I had maybe 30 seconds on him, which was not going to be enough, but my plan was for him to feel he was close and go all out and surprise him when he got to the u-turn right before transition.

It worked like a charm. I geared up 4-5 gears and hammered it hard on the way home. Went past a a lot of people and on the last 3 miles one of the guys in my age group started to play a cat and mouse game. He passed me after I passed him, I did it again, he came back, etc.

When I was going into transition, I saw that Nick was going the other way, which meant I had about a mile on him (almost 3 minutes!). That may actually be enough for me to win the bet.

Not much. It is possible I could have pushed even a little harder, but I am not sure.

Average T2, pretty much same time I have hit in these events. Since Nick does not use bike shoes, he was going to gain a little more time back here (it was 30 seconds he recovered)

Nothing

So here was the time of truth. After pushing the bike as I did, was I going to be able to run? I started out and as usual for this race, the first half of the run is on packed sun. It truly sucks. Especially because the first half mile or so is always the harder when getting off the bike, adding the sand makes it awful.

Luckily, after that first half mile I felt much better and I was going at a good pace (for me at least). I reached mile marker 1 and Nick was not there yet, so my hopes were getting up, I knew he was going to have to catch me before the midpoint to have a chance at winning our bet.

Right at the midpoint I hear quick feet behind me and a few seconds later a familiar voice that tells me "Great job on the bike, you win the bet". Then I see him pass by me and said something like "You are looking great, tear it up".

I was running 8:30 or close to that, so he needed to run a 6:30 pace to win. He did not seem to be running at that speed, but it was hard to be sure. I just focused on keeping my cadence high and we would find out later who won the bet.

In the meantime, I had come out of the water near the front, and had not seen anyone from my age group pass me on the bike or the run, so I was pretty sure I was either first or among the top spots in my age group. Focusing on Nick had made me go fast and now I was benefiting from that in my age group standings. With less than a mile to go I see someone with a 36 on his calf run past me. He seemed to be hurting, but he was going faster than me. I tried to keep up and did it for a bit, but then I started losing ground and there was nothing I could do about it.

I finished the run with a good effort and was pretty much completely spent by the time I crossed the finish line. The guy that passed me towards the end won the age group, and I was about 50 seconds behind. Nick beat me by a minute and a half, so I won that bet, and I was truly happy with my performance!

Absolutely nothing.

Walked around a bit, grabbed some water and fruit and talked with Nick and a couple of other friends for a while. Since my daughter (7-years-old) always ask me if I won, and this was my first podium, I wanted to wait to get my medal. It took about an hour, but her joy when I got back home was worth it :)


Nothing, based on my current ability, everything went perfect.


Once again, the race organizers fell well short of the mark. We had to delay the start because the sun was not out. Are you kidding me? You are telling me that it was so hard to figure out at what time sunrise is?

There was no one in the water! This is ridiculous and probably against the USAT rules (not sure, but it would make sense). This doesn't really affect me, but there were people there doing their first tri and many of them get anxious with the swim. Having no one in the water to help people in trouble is a truly awful idea.

They should have taken the buoys deeper into sea and done a different kind of start when they saw the tide was what it was. It was almost half run half swim the way it was set up.