On the ferry I sat next to a guy that was on his 19th "Escape" and his advice was to swim south, don't cut the corner, and let the current do the work to take me west. I pretty much adhered to what he said and hit the exit perfectly. I kept the pace moderate and I came out of the water fresher than I have felt in a long time.

Not much. If I had more training under my belt leading up to this race, I'd be inclined to push the pace a bit harder.

I pulled my wet-suit down to my waist as I was running along the beach. I located my T1 bag fairly quickly thanks to the Dill Pickle Duck (yes, Duck - not Duct) Tape that my wife bought me and we plastered my bag with. At the bag I stripped my wet-suit off, stuffed it in the bag, put on my shoes, and started the run to the main transition area.

In the main transition, I put on my glasses, helmet, some socks (normally race w/o - but, I was concerned about my feet getting cold), my shoes, and headed towards the mount line.

For the most part, everything went as planned.

I'd consider bypassing the beach-side T1 and heading straight to the main transition area - the running surface between them didn't look too bad for bare feet.

It was a bit crowded - but all-in-all it was a good tough course - I really enjoyed it!

My plan was to go a little easier on the bike than I normally do for two reasons: 1) Due to life-constraints, my training volume up to this race was about 1/2 of what I'd like and 2) I wanted to see how my run (which I normally struggle with) would be benefited.

As it turns out, some of those hills you just can't spin up. So, I think you have to burn a few matches just to get through the course. I managed as best I could and was keeping a decent avg pace of just over 18 mph until 15.5 miles into the race. Coming down the last hill, before the flat section into transition I nailed a pot-hole doing 40 mph. It sounded like my wheels were coming apart so, I started to slow down. I made it down to 35 mph before both tires blew out. Luckily, I was able to stay upright and get the bike stopped. I wasn't carrying a spare (not that I would of helped with two flats) - so, I removed my shoes and started jogging my bike to transition. As surface dictated, I alternated between jogging w/o shoes and walking with shoes.

I was determined to make it back and finish the race... two DNFs in a row was not going to happen! I estimate I lost about 24 minutes in this race due to the flat tires (18 miles at 18 mph vs a 1 hr 24 min finish).

Nothing.

Since my shoes were already in my hand and I had dismounted nearly 2 miles earlier - this transition was pretty simple... rack the bike, remove my helmet, put on my shoes, grab my visor and race belt... go.

Nothing

This was probably the best I have felt running in a race. At no point, did I "want" to walk. I did walk parts of the stairs and sand ladder due to course congestion or simple return on investment decisions... I felt great the whole time.

I used the fist flat section to get settled in and then just manged my effort according to the terrain until I hit the last flat section. From there, I took off and had a good strong finish. I hoped to negative split the course and did... the back half, which I believe to be harder (sand ladder) was over a minute faster that the front half.

Maybe push just a bit harder...

Walked around, ate a banana, drank some water and Muscle Milk.


Training volume and flat tires!

However, I really can't complain - I was very pleased with my effort, the results, and I finished the race with a big smile on my face in spite of the flat tires. After DNFing (coughing up blood) at my last race, I needed a race day like this to get me back on track.


Great race! I plan to do it again next year (with better training and no mechanical problems) if I can get in.