Pretty uneventful swim. Stayed with long strokes and didn't have anybody to draft off since I was just behind the the lead swimmers. The biggest challenge was swimming through the first couple waves that went out earlier.

Horrible, horrible transition. I couldn't get my wetsuit over my Garmin so strippers had to wait to pull off wetsuit. I get to my bike and get everything packed back into my T1 bag and realized I had my arm warmers in my helmet just in case I was cold. I had to untie my T1 bag and put the arm warmers back in. Lost some time here.

We started with a tailwind so I took I started out easy and still passed Jim who I knew I'd be competing with for the AG win. There was nobody in front of me once I got ahead of Jim and I don't really know this bike course. I ended up taking a wrong turn on when all of the sudden I here someone yell that I was not on the course. I only went about 1/2 a mile but by the time I turned around and got back on course it cost me at least 3 minutes. I quickly passed Jim again and knew I had to put some distance between him and myself because he is a better run than me.

Into the headwind I just told myself to stay small and as aero as possible. I spun at a good cadence until I turned back into the tailwind for the 2nd loop where I pushed the pace a littler harder. Back into the headwind and I spun into T2.

I felt like I stayed well within myself on the bike and really had to a good split if you take off the time for going off course.

Again not a great transition. The dismount line snuck up on me after turning off the main road and I only got 1 foot out my shoes. I had to stop and get off the bike and run into T2 with 1 shoe still on.

Other than that, once I got to my bike I got out pretty quickly.

And this is where I begin to wonder why the crap I continue to race. I started the first of 4 loops running easy and I wanted to get a feel for how far out front of Jim I was. When I got to the turnaround on the run I could determine how much I had on Jim. I had a 3:00 lead which held up all the way through to the last lap.

My nutrtion was spot on as I never felt like I was bonking. My hydration, however, was about to be a BIG issue again on the run. It wasn't hot but once again I must not have drank enough on the bike. I had maybe 1 1/2 bottles of water along with 3/4 bottle of my Carbopro nutrition. I was holding a very good pace until mile 8 of the run when I started to feel the leg cramps coming. By mile 9 I had to slow significantly and had to stop a couple times to stretch my hammies.

Now as mentioned, I still had just under a 3:00 lead with 1.5 miles to go. I slowed a lot because all I had to do was keep moving for the win. At mile 13, yes mile 13, just 1/10 of a mile to go and just before entering the finishing shoot both legs completely locked up with cramps. I couldn't even crawl in. As I was bent over stretching Jim ran by and gave me a low five as he ran on for the AG win. The best I could do was walk it in the rest of the way.

Very frustrating and as I write this I really wonder if I have it in me to properly prepare to attempt another KQ at IMCDA in June.

I felt like crap. I couldn't move very well because every step I took almost led to a cramp. I started getting chilled because it was cold so I went back to T2 and grabbed my sweatshirt and pants to get warm.

I decided to grab my bike right away and head home as my son was home from college for the weekend.


Another great race by the High Five team!