Started off first in my lane as the other three guys said they were going to take 20 minutes. Two of them stayed close the whole way so I'm not sure what they were thinking. The fourth did a good job of staying out of our way.
Swam the first 200 freestyle and my shoulders felt great. Swam a total of 75 yards of breast stroke during the last three hundred. Hopped out, saw my swim time and was very excited. My thought was, I'm going to kill my PR.

Great swim! 9:18 is smoking fast for me, in light of the 75 yards of breast stroke (which adds about 10 seconds per 25 yards). Keep working on my stroke and start doing some shoulder PT.
34 seconds faster than previous race.

Quick T1, 3rd fastest overall.
7 seconds faster than previous race.

More aggressive bike mount.

This is where I knew I needed to improve. Spent a lot of late winter/early spring doing harder work on the trainer with Spinervals, learning how to push myself and ride in higher zones. My mindset for this race was to push the bike and see what happens on the run as I've lost way too much time here.
Started off good and settled down before I hit the first hill. Unfortunately my HR monitor didn't sync and I really wanted to ride this by HR. Instead I just went with what felt like a hard Z4 effort. Because there were slower swimmers ahead of me, I ended up passing tons of riders on the course. Felt strong through lap one and tried to maintain through two. Ended up riding the second lap just 20 seconds slower than the first.

Keep this up. This was 2:31 improvement over my previous race!

Swung off the bike a little early and lost momentum. Missed my rack but it wasn't a problem. Took a few seconds to take off my HR strap as I didn't need it.

5 seconds faster than previous race.

So this is where I would see how much pushing the bike would affect the run. Felt ok coming out of T2 but held back a bit to see what happened. Stomach felt good, no cramping throughout. First mile was about ten seconds slower than last year but I still felt ok. Not as strong but ok. At about two miles, some weather front moved in and the wind really picked up. I would get either a side, head, or tailwind depending on which way the sidewalk meandered. Kept checking my watch to see if I was on pace to make my goal time and kept pushing in. Finished strong.

Need to add more tempo and speed work now.

Run was about 40 seconds slower.

Walked around, stretched, Did a run a bit later in the day.


Not much. Race went off perfectly.
Wow, what an amazing day! My goal was to go under 1:10 and bike over 20 mph. Both accomplished. I also hoped to make the podium and ended up winning my AG. It was really cool to be able to hang out with some of the local studs after the race and collect my medal. The best thing is that I know I can go even faster.


So I love this race and it's hard to pick on it but the quality is declining a bit. Packet pickup was easy but when my wife picked up hers, the race director was a bitch to her for no reason at all. The race started late but this wasn't the fault of the organizers. The post race nutrition was weak. No Gatorade, just water, bagels, and pepperoni rolls.