I really sucked this swim up. I believe that the course may have been a little long considering that I average 1:42-1:45 per 100m on long straight swims in the pool. A 20+ second per 100m speed difference in the OW? I don't think so! I did have a problem getting into my groove, but not that bad. I feel like this swim was not indicative of my conditioning.

So the gun goes off and there's a group of elite racers that started 10 meters ahead of my wave. I took off like the rest of the group and had an average first few hundred meters. There was a little more jockeying in the start than I'm accustomed to, but nothing that shook me up too much. I caught an elite chicks foot right in my head, but I just quickly popped my head up for a second to regroup and then took off again. After rounding the first buoy, I knew that I wasn't swimming my best, but I knew that I needed to push if I wanted to win my bet with Mike. I came out of the lake and made the dumbest decision of my triathlete life: I had a wetsuit stripper pull my suit off. The reason I say that my decision was stupid was because this lady managed to destroy my Quintana Roo Superfull wetsuit. Yes, you read that correctly, she destroyed that suit :(. There is a huge tear in the seam and body of the suit in the shoulder/chest region. Yeah, I didn't realize that until after the race. I think that a kick in the nuts would have felt better than realizing that my wetsuit was destroyed.

Honestly, I'm not too sure. I pushed myself and just didn't have it all like I normally do. I think that my swim was not a complete bust, I was still near Mike, which meant that I still had a shot at winning out personal race.

T1 consisted of a few hundred meters of running to my bike, so my time isn't as bad as it looks, but it still wasn't blazing. I generally sandbag the transitions because I like to go out with everything rather than freak out about a few seconds of time and forget something important. I also like to take a second to watch people freak out like they are competing for the overall at Kona; it helps me relax and laugh a little. If anything, I stay lighthearted about my race and enjoy it more.

Nothing; I have no desire to look like most people in the T areas.

The first half of the bike was killer! We took off and after dropping two large hills, we started the climb, and it didn't end until the turnaround. I had a hard time climbing, but so did everyone else. I felt like I did terrible on the first half, but on the way back, I came on strong. I passed quite a few people, including a pace line of men on their uber expensive tri bikes and wheels. I take joy in passing people with bikes that cost more than my car :). I was semi frustrated though because I have been averaging in excess of 21 MPH on my rides recently, so I was hoping to post a faster overall time.

Umm... work on focusing a little harder. I kind of zoned out on the first half because I wasn't doing well.

Again, I sandbagged the transition and had a little altercation with a dude that tried to rack his bike where I was in the process of racking mine. Yes, he tried to run in front of me while I was in the process of racking my bike. I asked him what he was doing and he said "racking my bike." I asked him if he didn't seem me racking my bike when he butted me out of the way and he started to cop an attitude. I then told him that he could move his bike or fish it out of the lake because I wouldn't hesitate to take a few extra seconds to run his bike down there and chuck it. Well, that solved the problem. Then I put my shoes on, took a drink, and ran down everyone down that passed me in the transition area.

Ok, so my run was actually the most frustrating part of my race. I really wanted to push below 6:20 per mile pace on the run, but I sandbagged the first few miles a little too much. I ran the first half around 7:45 pace and then started to pick things up significantly after the turnaround. I know I could have gotten a lot closer to 6:20 pace, but I am still trying to figure out how aggressibely I should run off of the bike. I like picking up the pace throughout the run, but I need to do it earlier. I was also discouraged by my overall time at this point, so I kind of turned off until the turnaround when I realized that if I wanted to even break 7 minutes, I needed to pick things up.

Umm... come off of the bike more aggressively and pick up the pace after 1.5-2 miles.

Lots of stuff. Mostly my head.


Don't let my race report fool you, I had a blast at this race. I just didn't hit any of my goals at this race, and I'm a very goal oriented dude. I think I had a little performance anxiety, but I shouldn't, because I tri because it's fun, not for another more serious reason. I kind of finished my race season for the year. I still have two more Olys to do, but I'm spending the rest of my season focusing on building a huge base for next year so that I can bump up to Marys and 1/2 IMs next summer.