Today's swim goal - Have fun. Hit that goal!

I'm really liking swimming in training now, especially OWS. In races, its hit or miss with the stress, so I just wanted to take it easy and enjoy a nice swim with life guards watching my back. I slept funny last night and woke up with a sore left shoulder, so I focused on form and not overdoing it. Everything went "swimmingly" until I rounded the first buoy. I even managed to draft off a guy for a little while.

After the first turn the sun was in my eyes and I went off course. When I could see anything, it was the buoys for the HIM. The down side was that I swam too far, but that was offset by the relaxing swim I had with no one within kicking distance!

Nothing. Maybe pull the trigger on a sleeveless. I hate my wetsuit, but that buoyancy is nice.

BestT1 ever! Nothing fancy I just moved along at a good clip and didn't get hung up on anything. It's a decent run up from the beach and I couldn't believe that so many people were strolling up it. All the work it takes to shave a minute off an OLY swim time, and your just going to give it back? I moved up 9 spots in my AG in T1, if I'm reading the way they report times right.

With my slow swimming, I should start making transitions my "thing"

Bike goal - avg 180watts and keep cadence in the 80s. Did that and then some. I figured that 85% of threshold would be a good goal for today. That's a little low for an Oly, but with all the hills I figured that would be 90%+ in normalized power.

Lately I've been annoyed that I don't hold the same king of watts outside as on the trainer. Today was the day to work on that. I didn't coast unless I was about to brake. Recovering with high cadence low power on the downhills is recovery too.

All in all just a good ride. Not great, but I'm not a great rider. I spent a lot of the race going back and forth with a 49y/o female powerhouse. I'd pass her on the downhills because I have a good 20lbs on her, and she'd pass me right back when we started climbing. At some point I did drop her and tried to keep up with some guys in my AG, but was hit or miss with fending them off. Did move up 7 AG spots over the bike leg, so no complaints. This race brings out some fast fellas.

Get better at the dismount. I took my feet out before the dismount, but I'm not flexible enough for that without practice, so gave myself stomach cramps.

Oh, and ride more.

Nothing all fine. Didn't gain or lose any position in T2

Run goal - just run it like a runner. In the half last year, I was the walking dead after the bike and my system was shutting down. I guess I hit this goal, but still walked a couple of steep hills. my stretch goal was to not let any guys in my AG pass me on the run. Not even close on this one, but I did move up 10 more spots...


I went out too hard for the first 2 miles and paid for it when the going got tough. But I don't know, I was going to pay one way or the other, so maybe I just bought myself some cushion.

I almost kissed the girl who gave me the cold wet towel that they were handing out. It really started heating up during the run and I was done... I went straight to get some food before most. Some of the stuff was "serve yourself" and triathletes sometimes gross me out the way they handle communal food....

After the half last year, I couldn't eat for 6 hours after the race, so a big improvement here too.

Then home to mow the lawn and get the pool ready for tomorrow. I can't wait until William's old enough do some of this crap for me :-)



Rev3 and Quassy are fantastic. I'm not sure if I'll travel to any of their other races but definitely doing this one again. I'm leaning towards the Revolution (Oly on Saturday, HIM on Sunday) next year. I can race the Oly and use the Half as a hard training day for IMLP. We'll see.