It was a self-seeded rolling start, so I put myself toward the back third of the 30-33 min group, thinking I'd be a bit faster than Navesink. They sent us off in batches, with rows of four across and four or five back. When my group went, I jogged down the beach to the water, then started to run through the waves. After a bit, I realized that I was going to wear myself out and just walked through them (tide was very low). When it got deep enough, I intended to swim, but I was reluctant to put my head in the cold water (after a ton of dithering, I'd decided not to wear my wetsuit - 65 degrees was my mental cut-off and it was 65.1), so I dawdled a bit and kept moving through the waves. Finally, after the breakers and right near the first buoy, I went for it. Once I started swimming, the water was basically fine. There were some very slight waves going out. I didn't mind them too much because I was busy jockeying for position. The beauty of seeded starts is that, while there was traffic and some contact, there wasn't anyone to swim over since we were going roughly the same speed. I got to the first turn buoy well before I expected it and rounded it easily. Sighting was very easy and, while I did cut a bit to the inside a few times as I tried to avoid contact, I navigated really well. Once out in the bay, the waves were very small. All I had to worry about was staying out of other swimmers' way. I only had one annoying person who swam up my calves for three strokes in a row, but some hard kicking got rid of them right away. Other than that there were no problems. When I got about halfway I tried to pick up my stroke rate. This was a tricky since I was a bit boxed in at that point and speeding up meant inviting more contact, but I was able to maneuver to some clear water and pick up the pace. I picked it up even more when I rounded the final turn buoy, taking advantage of the tide that was coming in (a little) to propel me forward. As I swam into shore, experience told me to be careful of the breaking waves, but while I was looking back trying to gauge when they were behind me, my hand started hitting sand, so I popped up and ran it in. I glanced at my watch as I exited the water and saw that I'd had a great swim, but I didn't hit the watch until I entered transition because I didn't see the timing mat, which was at the edge of the sand, I guess.

This was an excellent swim. I'd suck it up and get in faster, but other than that, I have no complaints.

Since T1 involved running for two and a half blocks away from the beach to transition, I was glad I'd put shoes out (my Saucony Guides, which I'd brought as backup). I slipped them on in the time it was taking everyone else to get their wetsuits stripped, and had a much more comfortable run into transition. When I got there, I took the time to squirt water from my bike bottle (knowing there were plenty of aid stations) onto my feet to clean off the sand before putting on my socks and shoes.The rest of transition went pretty smoothly. I pulled my bike off the rack, put my watch onto it, and jogged toward the front, where I'd come in. Little did I know, however, that they'd changed the orientation and I had to go out the back. I was really confused, because I was already a little tired, and couldn't find the opening I expected to be there. When I was directed to the opposite end, only to have to run back to the front through the chute, I was a little annoyed. I don't know how I was supposed to know they would change the transition layout from what it had been when I arrived that morning. Once I got through the chute and hit the mount line, I bent down to tighten my bike shoes before going, since they'd felt a little loose when I was jogging with them, and was off.

My transitions are still not totally smooth - I don't practice them, so I do have to think more about what I'm doing. That is good, in some ways. Not doing ocean tris much, I wouldn't have stopped to clean my feet so well if I wasn't thinking. The main thing I could do to improve is understand the transition layout better, but in this case, I don't know how I was supposed to find that out .

Something I did very right was leaving those shoes at the swim exit. No regrets there.

I started off strong on the bike, mindful of my cadence from the start. Since I was near the front of the pack, I was being passed by a lot of fast people, but I'd expected that and it didn't bother me (it meant I didn't have to worry about drafting). I thought about getting into a good rhythm with the high cadence I wanted (also mindful that my desired average pace was 17.1 mph) and starting my fueling plan. The plan was to eat three Clif bars and two sleeves of shot bloks on the bike. I'd broken up the Clif bars and put them in empty tissue packets (since I'd forgotten baggies) in my bento box. I realized quickly that, having broken them into more than six pieces each AND having shot bloks, eating every 10 minutes wasn't enough, so I tried to eat whenever my hands were free to grab food, which worked well. It lasted me through most of the bike - I finished a little early, but that meant more time to digest, so I figured it was ok. The first fifteen miles went by in a flash. Several people warned me about a long, slow climb around mile 10, but I'm not even sure what they were referring to - yes, there was climbing, but nothing major or difficult. Before I knew it, the mile 15 aid station had popped up. I grabbed my throw-away water bottle and checked if there was any left - only a little - and got ready to toss it. I had to slow down considerably (there was a downhill into it) and be careful to dodge debris on the road, but I was able to chuck my bottle, call out for water, and target the bottle held by the first volunteer. Because I kept having to glance down at the debris, I lost focus on the first bottle and had to go by, but I was able to grab the second (and since I'd called out to the volunteers that I wasn't good at this, they cheered me when I successfully grabbed it) and go on my merry way. The next several miles were lovely rolling hills, but in the back of my mind was the one big hill I was told was coming. I'd just about given up on it, thinking I must have passed it, when it turned up. The hill was tough because of the grade, but not too long, so it wasn't terrible, and I knew it was mainly downhill from there. When I cruised into the 30 mile aid station, I grabbed my bottle on the first try, setting the tone for a victorious back half of the course. The only hiccups were some other athletes who were rude. I was definitely drafted by one guy who I couldn't shake even when I slowed down to take water and open my shot bloks (if I can hear you breathing, you're in the draft zone, dude). I eventually sped up to ditch him. In another place, people were passing and not moving to the right when two cars pulled out in front of me. I was the second rider back, going down a hill, and the people in front weren't giving the cars space to go through even though i'd shouted "car back" to alert them. The guy in front of me was motioning the car over so he could pass it on the right and other cyclists started catching up to us on the left. When it started to look like it was becoming dangerous, I got pissed off so I took a huge breath in and bellowed "CAR BACK!" This time, the people further up got the message and moved over so the car could go through. That was the last difficult congestion issue I had. The other dicey places were on the turns, which usually had a lane coned off for us to turn in. The problem was that the lane was narrow and I kept going into it with people (guys) right on my tail looking to pass me. I did not want anyone passing me on the turn (which is obviously dangerous), so I kept glancing back and them and moving left to take up the whole lane and give them the idea. I also did this in one spot where we were making a left turn and there was a car that was considering passing me on the left - I stayed way wide to the left to make it clear that passing was a bad idea. Defensive cycling for the win. I started to get a bit tired through the back half as the hills largely went away and I had to keep cranking down flats and false flats, but I was able to keep up my pace pretty well. With 10 miles to go, I stopped in someone's driveway (my only stop on the course) to reapply my chamois gel - I felt silly stopping so late in the course, but I was much more comfortable after I'd done it. Once I got back into OOB and saw runners coming at me, I put on a final burst of speed that took me down the chute into transition about a minute and a half over my goal time.

I don't think so much solid nutrition was a good idea for me. I need to start looking into liquid supplements so I don't have to worry so much about digesting. This wasn't a problem on the bike itself, but when I got to the run, all that food didn't sit well.

I dismounted at the line and ran into transition. When I saw the port-a-potty at the end of the chute, I realized that I had to go, so I darted right for it - the lock showed green! - and yanked the door open. Unfortunately, there was a guy inside. As I was grabbing my bike to just rack it (thinking I'd hit up the other port-a-potties at the exit, he came out, said the lock was broken, and offered to watch the door while I went in there. This was an awesome offer, so I did, and was very happy I had the opportunity. The rest of my transition was very smooth - possibly smoother than usual - and I was able to get out at a good pace.

Nothing.

The run was tough from the get-go. I tuned out of transition, bypassing the volunteers applying sunscreen (in retrospect, that might have been a good idea - I felt like I was burning out there, though I turned out ok), and started up the road. The course was immediately uphill, though at a reasonable grade, which didn't do much for my morale. When I turned the corner onto the actual loop, the uphills were worse and the course was in full sun. That first mile or so of the loop was the worst part of the course. I was a bit encouraged by my first mile, which was faster than I thought and WENT faster than I expected, but subsequent miles did not surprise me like that. I walked a few times - once I even stopped to stretch my calves - but mostly jogged through the first four miles, from the road out onto the Eastern Trail. As I'd learned pre-running it, the trail is a false flat, but it felt just as bad going downhill as uphill. It was straight and flat (good) but seemed interminable, and seeing lines of other runners going out and back wasn't helpful for morale. I was able to stop at a port-a-potty along the trail because my stomach hurt, but nothing came of it. I was also nauseous from all that eating on the bike, so while I was eating my shot bloks and taking salt every 10 minutes, it was becoming a chore. At mile 4 I stopped to walk and set up my 4/1 run/walk intervals, which I followed the rest of the way. Turning off of the trail was a relief, but there was a lot of uphill going back into town. When I got to the end of the loop and saw Jeff (who I'd seen at the end of the bike, but had gone missing when I started my run), I was in a walk interval so I had more time to chat with him. I told him I was feeling awful and that the second loop would be pretty rough. This was not my most optimistic portion of the course. Going back uphill at the start of the route was as rough as I'd expected, and to make it worse, the dried sand in my socks was starting to give me blisters. I stopped to use the port-a-potty after the first aid station (still nothing), then stopped again a bit later to take off my sock and shoe and try and mitigate the blister situation. It didn't feel like it worked at the time, but the blisters didn't get much worse - after the race I had a huge one on my big toe and another little one, but nothing debilitating. The stretch before the Eastern Trail had a few homeowners out with music and spraying hoses at us, which was really helpful and nice. Once I got back to the trail, it was death-marchy again, but I stuck with my intervals and gutted through it, albeit slowly. At this point, my stomach was feeling better so eating wasn't a problem. I saw a few club members at this point, including Dan Jablon, who was having difficulty with the run and stayed with me for a little bit. I was still drinking a ton - I refilled the bottle I was carrying with water and ice at every aid station - I probably drank between 5-6 whole bottles on the run (100-120 ounces of fluid!). When I turned back onto the road, I had a hard time mentally keeping up with my intervals. I saw that my pace was increasing, though, and once I hit mile 11, I stopped doing the intervals altogether and tried to just run it in. This was hard, but I knew I didn't have to hold it together for that much longer. When I got within range of transition, there was a crowd of spectators, so my pride kept me running. I turned down off the loop toward the finish, which was blissfully downhill (though no easier than before). I turned onto the final road, which I knew was super long, and tried to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. When passing transition, there were more spectators, including an announcer cheering us on, and I saw a bunch of CJTC people (including Joe Milmoe, who was wearing his medal) sitting in the shade cheering for me. I know that gave me a boost, but that boost was to my speed which meant I was working much harder with a few tenths of a mile still to go. I was finally able to cross through the Main St intersection and get to the finish chute, where Jeff was stationed near the end with a sign. The chute was fairly long, so I was able to enjoy it a bit more than at IMAC - and was really surprised when I saw the clock and realized that I was going to PR after all (I never looked at the total time while out on the run because I knew I wasn't going to hit my aggressive goal time). Crossing the finish line and being able to stop was a total relief, but unlike last year, it didn't come with any negative feelings.

I need to be running faster overall. I did so much Z2 work this summer, which I had hoped would translate to some magical burst of speed during the race. Ultimately, I spent a lot of the race just a little ahead of my Z2 pace. There were no miracles. I performed how I trained. That being said, better fueling early on meant that I had the energy to pick up the pace and walk less during the last 5K. I just need to adjust the type of fuel to keep me more comfortable during the run.

My mental attitude was much better than at IMAC as well. While I certainly was down, I was not so down that I wasn't able to plod through it. And I didn't suffer the increasing leg pain that I had during the IMAC run either - whether that was due to better nutrition or better strength training, I'm not sure.

Overall, the run can be considered one of my best for one reason: I did not bonk.

Walked around to find Jeff, then went to the port-a-potty (having to pee after a race is a huge success for me - I was super dehydrated after IMAC), and visited the food tent. As I wandered off to find a shady place to sit, I found Gena and Alex, and sat and hung out with them for a while. Then I went to the tent and found the rest of the club with their lobster. After some chatting, Jeff and I went to get my stuff from transition, and then back to the B&B where we soaked in the pool for a few minutes before going out for food.


I had a rough year. My training over the winter was severely limited by my injuries, so I did little up until April. When I was starting to try and build things up before my training plan started, I got a bad case of the flu. My plan started right then, in the aftermath of flu, still injured. I remember starting it off thinking that I wasn't going to be able to complete the first workouts. I also started off running 17:30 minute miles, with walkers going past me. I persevered, pushing through repeated tweaks of my neck, to finish out the training plan and manage an impressive race, in which I hit most of my aggressive goals. In fact, I followed my race plan to the T in every way, except for run finish time. This was a triumph for me, plain and simple.


A well-run race in a beautiful venue. There were plenty of volunteers and aid stations. The course was lovely - calm ocean swim, scenic rolling bike course, combination road/trail run with a decent amount of shade. The town was very enthusiastic and supportive, which made for an awesome race day vibe.