Good swim for me. I improved my time from last year by nearly 6 minutes. I stayed relaxed for the entire swim and stayed on course. I've been working a lot on navigating this year. Last year, I was wandering all over the place. No so much this year. The water conditions were great. I noticed that my age group swim rank (13th) was actually higher than my run rank (16th). That is a stunner for me. I was a little concerned about the swim because I scratched the cornea of my right eye last Sunday doing an OWS. But everything seems to have healed up fine.

Nothing. Hopefully, I can continue to improve my swim.

I had a little bit of trouble getting out of my wetsuit.

I seem to do a better job removing my wetsuit when I sit down.

I've been working hard on my bike lately, so it's nice to see some improvement. I've successively lowered my bike time on this course by two minutes each year. I can clearly see my riding pattern now: I lose ground on the uphill, gain it back again on the downhill, and I'm fairly solid on the flats. I imagine my weight (175 lbs) has a lot to do with it. I played cat and mouse with another rider in my age group who usually leaves me in the dust. He still beat me by about 25 seconds, but it gives me hope that I'll be able to keep up with him some day.

Nothing, I think. I left enough in my legs for the run, which was my main goal.

I fumbled a bit with my Garmin watch.

I think I'm ready to start trying to run without socks. I'm going to ease my way into it and see what happens. Hopefully, this will save me a couple of seconds in transition.

My goal was to dip under 40 minutes for the run, so 39:55 feels pretty good. I've been working hard on my leg strength lately so I'd have something left for the run. I managed to stay at an 8-minute pace for the most part. Near the end of the run, I picked up the pace a little bit, but it appeared I was still going to miss my goal time. Then, with about a quarter mile to go, I passed up a big guy who was a few years younger than me. I guess I hit a nerve. I heard him grunt and say "Okay, we're on," and he surged back ahead of me. I've never had this happen before. But it was actually kind of fun having a sparring partner. We ran side by side for a while, until he surged ahead again. Then, with about 75 yards to the finish, we crossed a temporary wood bridge covering a drainage ditch leading to the finish in the parking lot. At this point, I suddenly found another gear, broke into a sprint, and left the other guy behind me. I really surprised myself -- I didn't know I had it in me. After the race, I chatted with the other guy for a few minutes and we thanked each other for the extra push at the end. I don't think I would have broken 40 minutes without that last sprint!

In hindsight, if I'd known I had so much energy in reserve, I would have picked up the pace earlier. This was all new to me. I usually don't have much left in my legs at the end of a triathlon.

I walked around the expo area and drank some Gatorade. It was fun talking to EV3110 of BT in the transition area afterward. I also finally met clydecat of BT (and his son) as we were walking our bikes and equipment back to our cars. We've raced in 5 or 6 triathlons together, but never met face to face until now -- nice to meet you, Clyde!


Experience. I need to know when it's time to push the run harder.


It was nice to finally put together a complete race in which I felt good about my swim, bike, and run. I improved my time in this year's race but more than 10 minutes over last year's race. I still have plenty of room for more improvement, but I seem to be heading in the right direction.