Based on my expected swim time I seeded myself at 1:21/100 meter which put me as 52th swimmer going off but actual results had me as the 16th fastest swim after comparing men and women. I swam very hard for the first 250 passing 5-6 people. from 250-350 I couldn't get around the slower guy because he insisted on doing flip turns. I finally made a pass and then the woman behind me passed me so I just drafted her the final 150 of the course which was good because I was pretty blown up. I got out of the water and my watch read 8:08 for my best Parris Island swim ever out of 5 races, took 15 seconds to get from the pool into transition.

I only had 3 weeks of swim practice over the last 6 months due to submarine duty. Overall, very pleased with the swim effort.

So my T1 was a hot mess and it cost me 2nd place in the military division. The race temp was about 50 degrees when I started and I was wet so I had a plan to put on socks and arm sleeves in T1. I struggles with both of these tasks due to being wet. Then I tried to put my halo band on with my new specialized s-works helmet and the halo band went into my eyes, so I had to take everything off and re-attack. Finally, my bike got stuck on the rack coming under and that cost me a few extra seconds. By this time I was the last person left in transition from my rack and i was very frustrated.

Skip putting on clothes while wet in T1.

I wasted the first .5 miles trying to get my arm sleeves on holding about 19mph. Then held 23mph out to the range where we do the 4 square turn, I followed the lady in front of me through the turns because she picked some aggressive lines and I was worried about the potholes (post race she lives on base and bikes the course weekly). From there until the golf course I held between 24-25mph steady with HR between 177-178BPM. I was worried that I would blow up on the run and decided to throttle back a bit. I wasted the lollipop turnaround by going 15 mph and catching my breath. On the run back I was between 22-23mph with HR between 172-174BPM. Rode it back in and was ready to run. The sum total caused me to be about a minute off my previous 2 best bikes.

Race pacing, need to maintain max effort. Also not a bad effort for not pushing race pace for several months and having <100 miles on the Dimond.

Still trying to find out how to be quicker.

Need to re-calculate T2 process, maybe even practice.

The first .2miles my left foot hurt bad like plantar fasciitis was going to win the day but after the early turns I got into a mantra and everything was ok. Coming off the bike I saw a guy named Tyler who was a marine and I knew that based on his swim seeding that I had 2 minutes on him and I figured that I would pass him and have an easy race. Slowly over the first half of the race he opened his lead from 20 seconds to 40 seconds and was accelerating. At the turn saw Hipp on his way back, Shenal at the sign and passed Abby at the turn around. I kept pushing hard constantly evaluating the splits. At 2 miles in a guy with IM passed me on the run and was hauling (he ended up running a 16:40 and took 2nd place, see T1 comment). That broke me for a moment but I knew I had at least 3rd because I was still up on tyler. My HR kept climbing higher and higher peaking at 180BPM (redline) until I crossed the finishline. That push was required because I held off tyler for 3rd by 7 seconds.

Again not a bad run considering I had minimal speed training from coming off the submarine deployment. More speed work in the future is required.

Immediately crossed the finish line and laid there until my HR returned to normal. Grabbed a sweet tea, tuna sandwhich, fruit and a couple cookies. Cheered and talked to friends, was very social with everyone. Packed up transition and hung around for awards. Ended up finishing 3rd in military division and got a large vase.


Limited training time due to 5 month submarine deployment


I took 3rd military division but also would have taken 1st in 40-44 year old age group. This event is always awesome and I love the ability to beat marines! Setup events always delivers an amazing race and this year did not disappoint. USAT score was high at 84.275.