Ok, I knew this was going to be tough considering the swim has been my Achilles Heel. With that, I have gotten tons better in the past few weeks, especially since I have learned to breathe in freestyle. I let the speedy guys and gals do their thing and swim ahead, mixed in free and sidestroke to get going. Water was a lot choppier from the wind then when I had seen it before. So the issue with my speedsockets has been a residue that fogs em up something fierce after a while. I had to take them off a few times to unfog them. With about 700 yards to go, the band came undone. After a few attempts to fix them, I just stuck em in my suit and said to hell with it. I ended up swimming the remaining distance with primarily sidestroke, some blind free and some backstroke. While the time aint so hot, I am very proud that I kept my wits about me the duration of the swim even with the goggle thing. More importantly, I left the water feeling pretty fresh and ready to go on the bike. Big improvement even from my sprint in August in that respect.

Buy goggles in bulk, keep working on swim in the winter.

As the first time at the distance, made sure I was refueled and had everything for the ride

Pick up speed here in future HIM's

Construction caused them to alter the course a bit with a beefy hill right at the start. The Garmin had this a little shorter than advertised, but I dont know if I can use that as law. It was very windy with winds of 9-13 mph out of the NE, so it made for a long ride at times. I felt that I need to get better with the nutrition plan as I had some valleys that I was able to recover from (as far as feeling fatigued) but some of that may have been an over aggressive pace at first. This time includes a pit stop at a port o potty, so if I ever decide I can place (and I reeeeally want it), the whole, ahem, relief on the bike thing might need to be learned. Went through two bottles of Perp, one granola bar (should have been two) and a Cliff Bar that literally took me about 10 minutes to eat cuz I couldnt get any saliva going. Not sure that those are the best solution on the bike. Some tool was on my wheel hard at about mile 30 so I had to break him off with a few quicker efforts into the wind. I thought about a snot rocket, but being the classy guy I am let it pass.

Nutrition needs work. I thought it was a good bike overall and I pulled back towards the end after the wind was beating me up a bit on my pace to get fresh for the run.

Again, tried to make sure fueled up and would finish the event. I ate a banana to hopefully prevent cramps that sometimes are an issue for me. I even joked with a spectator asking if they could tell I wasnt overly concerned with transition times. Got to see my wife and child #2 cheering me on which just had me over the moon heading into the run.

Confidence in nutrition game plan will alleviat the worry about getting up to snuff and lowering T2 times. This transition was fine for what I was shooting for today.

The experiment with Yams two weeks ago allowed for a decent gameplan here- take the hills slow and do what you can in the flats. I dumped water on my head at almost all rest stations to keep cool, took Heed from my Fuel Belt until I was out of it (need another 10 oz flask). First lap went great, actually about until 8 miles in and then took a Powerbar gel and I think the sugar content caused some GI concerns. Started to cramp and fade a bit but a few more pulls off the Heed helped. Ran with a few different folks, but the dynamic here was interesting as many chose to walk the steeper sections of the hills (including myself at times) to keep the legs alive. About 10 miles in, my right arm started to cramp and caused minor concern as this is usually a sign of the beginning of the end before heavy cramps come into play. More water helped beat them back a bit and finished strong. Overall, this was primarily by my gameplan, though I felt after the first loop I could have done a bit better (before fizzling a bit lap 2)

Hydration strategy, find a gel that works for me. Swim focus cut into long run training leading up to this and I could tell a bit that longer runs and bricks were lacking a bit. However, I didnt drown, did I? :)

Hugged wife, kissed child #2, chatted with Yams who kicked ass going sub 5. Loaded up the stuff, went to Subway with the fam on the way home, and kept grazing/hydrating over the day.


Need to work on nutrition. Swim will come after long cold winter and lessons starting in two weeks. More long bricks might be helpful for these events too (versus pulling a century three weeks ago, but dammit, its in the books now! :) )


Very tough course, beautiful location. I know there are flatter HIMs out there. I will do those, but plan on hitting this one again for a tough challenge.