Bunch of people took off like a shot. Let them go as I can't start like that, especially in deep water start. Clydes & Athenas were in this group as well, and didn't want to get hit. Seemed to swim much straighter this time than in the last race. Had to remember to keep the feel up as I kept short-arming a little bit. Mostly wanted to get through the swim without getting caught up in the excitement, even though it was short.

Warm up more. Focus on feel & technique a bit more. Swim faster.

Was able to get up and run very easily from the water. Least disorientation I can remember. Actually didn't have any. Just, fine.

Still taking too long. Seem to take forever getting my shoes on even though I'm moving right along. Haven't found tri shoes that work yet, so have to put on road shoes in transition. Run out ok.

Keep looking for tri shoes. Run harder from the water.

Went out hoping to make up some ground here, but performance was really flat on this ride. Just had no fire in my legs for it. Not entirely unexpected from how some workouts went in the days leading in, but hoped to have shaken it off. Had put together an 11-25 cassette after driving the course and glad I did, even though I didn't use the 25 as much as I thought. Went through, pushing as much as I could, but struggled to keep power up high. Would get up there for a bit, but then settle down lower. HR was very low for a sprint, so body just didn't want to go hard today.

Course was still fun. Go from pushing up a short hill to breaking 40 down the other side, quickly dropping all the way back down the gears on the next uphill. Played it safe on the far end with the turns on the longer decent. Dropped my chain for the 2nd time near the turnaround. That's never happened on this bike in 3 years, but now twice in 1 race. Not sure what's going on.

Rain started picking up on the return, turning into a downpour with a couple miles left. Glad I was out of the more tricky parts, but most people were just getting in there, and the Oly crowd would have a lot more hills to deal with than we did (that bike route is bigger than Knoxville). Especially fun reaching mid to high 30's at some points with this blowing at us.

Kind of stuck in no-mans land for other people. Passed a few swim specialists early on, then no one up ahead for awhile. My normal bike would have caught up, but not when I'm at least 10% under expectations. I may have caught up some anyway on this, but the two chain drops hurt that. Especially when momentum matters a lot. Still ended up only a minute off the fastest split. And for how slow the course is, the power I hit would usually put me around or just over 24 mph ave. I've broken just 25 mph on a rather flat course before. The Oly is worse still.

Remember my aero helmet (really was not my weekend),

Revise workouts leading into a race, even one of lesser importance. Especially with the big ride the weekend before.

Kinda slow, but need to get the shoes.

Rain was pouring, but was ready to run coming off the bike. Had fired up Garmin before the race, but battery was low, so turned it off. Turned it back on here, gave the same warning and promptly turned itself off. Ran as best I could by feel. Went for a solid tempo pace because of how I had been feeling. Never know for sure when I underbike if I'm really tired or just didn't want to go after it on that day.

About half a mile in is the out & back which goes over a fairly big hill. Starts off steep and then tapers some, but keeps going up for awhile. Then it drops well down the other side where the turnaround is. Where we go right back up and over this thing. Rain was coming down hard the entire run, so had to be careful on the descents.This is one time a visor would have actually been nice as things were blowing a bit too. Hard to see coming back down to the loop.

Rest of the course is pretty flat with one smaller hill. Outside of that one, it felt almost all downhill to me which tends to mean I'm running well. Couldn't see anyone except on the out and back, so still in the middle of that huge gap. Just cruised around feeling pretty good the whole way. Always seem to do well with these race shoes. Could have pushed harder than I did, but wasn't sure how I'd do with the underperformance on the bike. Could have gone a lot farther at this pacing as the hurt never really came.

Finished up and waited for a couple others I knew to get in.

Figure out better storage for the Garmin so the battery doesn't drain.

Mostly walked around and got some food.


Didn't have it that day.


This is a rather challenging course (both distances) that was fun to do. Race organization does well. Things were organized rather well and they still keep more of a low-key feel. Only complaint was on not announcing sprint awards were earlier, as everything posted had them several hours later along with the Olympic.