I can't really say how the swim went since I was the run leg on the team, but the swimmer said it was pretty easy once he got going. He got off course twice and added probably 100m to the swim.

Again I didn't do the bike but our cyclist said the long climb helped him because while most people hate climbs he seems to live for them, the crazy bastage.

OK this is where the wheels seemed to fall off. I polished off a bottle of water right before the race and had to use the men's room bad, but didn't have time. So I took off once our rider made it to T2 and exchanged the chip. My first mile was OK as I made it in about 6:15. I decided to slow down since I was so full of water. I could feel it sloshing around in my stomach. I made it past halfway at about 13:30, which was about perfect since I was shooting for a 21:00 flat. But then I started feeling bad. I started heaving up little bits of water then as I got to about mile 2.6 I stopped for about 30 seconds and basically forced the water out, if you know what I'm saying. It was very clear so I knew it was all water. After that I sprinted the last half mile to try to make up for lost time. No luck. I finished at 22:17.

The good news -- we still won the team competition by about three minutes. The next closest team was 16, 17 and 18 years old, so I felt good about 40, 38 and 31 year olds beating those youngsters.

Still I was disappointed that I almost let my team down because of something so stupid as drinking a bottle of water right before the 5K.

NOT drink a bottle of water right before the run.

Walked over to my waiting teammates and family and it was high-fives all around.