Water was pretty rough. 3-4 foot swells with a wind that was blowing them into us as we swam north. Wife said that many people were abandoning the swim before reaching the 2 buoy. The first half of the swim went relatively uneventful. Sighting was pretty good for the conditions. I don't feel as if I got off course too much. I got a cramp in my right calf at the 2nd orange buoy and then again at the last orange buoy. I lost 10 minutes total rubbing the cramps out. Finally hit the red buoy that signaled the turn back to shore. Got up to the beach and jogged up to T1 entrance.

It would have been nice to have had some more open-water swimming in conditions experienced on race day.

Transition area at Steelhead is long. I was probably 300-400yards from the T1 entrance. I took a lot more time than usual to make sure that I was good to go for the bike. Sat down to put on socks and shoes. Drank some water and took off with the bike.

I definitely could have moved a little faster.

Goal was to finish the bike around 3:00 hours, came pretty close to that. The course was mostly smooth with a few rough spots on some of the rural roads. I paced myself pretty good, did a lot more passing then getting passed so that is good. Had water in my aero bottle and an EFS concentrate in my down tube bottle. Drank 2 1/2 bottles of water and nearly all of the EFS. I also consumed 3 GU's on the ride. Wind at the back on a nice, smooth state highway for the last 20 miles of the bike course was wonderful, although there was 1 hill that was pretty bad (1st place where my quads locked up).

Better nutrition, not hammer it up that hill in the big chainring.

Changed socks, that added some additional time. Finished off my EFS concentrate. Had to piss like crazy, luckily my transition spot was 10 feet from a porta potty. Felt really good running out of T2.

I don't know, I'm sure there a some things I could have done to speed this up.

Felt great the 1st 1/2 mile, run pace was 8:30/mile. A little after the 1/2 mile mark both quads locked up. Took some time to rub them out and stretch a little. Took off again and didn't feel too bad, ran to the big hill and decided to walk it. Got to the top of the hill and took off running again only to have quads lock up again. I was only able to run .25mile at a time before having to walk. There was a house at the 2/7 mile mark that had cups of beer... that was the highlight for my run, I was actually really looking forward to hitting it on my 2nd lap and that served as motivation. All attempts at running were pretty much non-existent on lap 2. The longest distance I could run before cramping was 200m. Decided to save what I could for the finish chute and walk into the park. I rounded the turn into the chute with another competitor from my AG and decided to run it, I made it about 100feet from the finish line and the legs locked up and I had to stop doubled over in pain, after a few seconds I just said screw it and ran the rest of the way in.

Don't know, the cramps pretty much killed any hope I had of having a decent race.

Stretched. Ate salad, pizza, and drank a few waters and a Coke. Collected my things from transition and made the long walk back to the car. We left from the race and drove 5 hours home, had to stop twice for me to stretch the cramps out.


Cramps. I have no doubt that I would have been able to finish in 6:30 or under if I wouldn't have cramped. I was never exhausted or felt like I was pushing it too hard at any point in the race with the exception to the hill I pushed it up on the bike. I feel like I physically gave it my all considering the situation.


I will be doing this race again next year. I liked the course and the area. I be sure the get more long brick workouts in the next time around. Training this year had been really hard with a newborn and other things going on here. I'm confident that I can greatly improve on my time.