Followed my plan here, going 50y lengths as 5x5 strokes, 4 x 2 strokes, 3x3, 3x2 to one side, then 3x2 to both sides, then the last 25y just getting to the end. Got a little tired about midway through, but nothing I couldn't deal with. Seems like the four or five people I was standing near - who'd have estimated their time roughly comparable to mine - were all either training for Half Iron races or had recently completed one. WTH? No wonder I dropped down in percentile rankings!

Need to work on getting under lane lines and into the next lane. Noticed a couple of times that people I was right next to at one lane's end, somehow ended up 10 feet in front of me when I got into the next lane. They're pushing off at completion wall and going under the line. Me? I'm stopping, ducking my head under the line, then pushing off the new wall. Takes time. I expected about seven minutes, so I wasn't far off. But maybe I can do better?

Didn't want to push too hard and be breathing hard at start of bike, so I kept this pretty tame. Didn't waste much time, but I was moving slower than I normally would.

Plan was to ride reasonably hard but within myself, trying not to reach an effort level that triggered any burn in the legs, other than on the hills. Also, using all of my gears, including small ring, to keep things more efficient and keep the burn down.

Worked pretty well, but did result in a much slower ride than last year (although I was further into my training plan last year, by about a month).

Also very windy out, with some hefty gusts, made things harder.

I don't think anything. Effort level was OK on the bike, a good ride, particularly with the wind we were facing. And even as slow as it was, I still got back to the rack before anybody else did.

Very slow here because I had to sit down and pull on my socks over wet feet, then my shoes, then tie my shoes. Last year I'd been training to run sockless and was using laceless Zoots. Those changes alone would make the time difference here.

Nothing. Time will come down once I get to running sockless.

I knew my time would not be good here; turned out worse than anticipated. Knew the chest issue would rear up, and probably early, which it did. So I had a very specific plan here to treat this run just like my weekly runs, including the walking breaks, although I planned to reduce them from a minute to 45-50 seconds. Also, using the data from the new Stryd, I wanted to keep my run power in the 180s. Then, in the second half of the race, I wanted to do several minutes of increased pace every 20 seconds over the course of a minute.

I managed to do all of that; the only out-of-plan aspect was, later in the race, I found myself walking after the intervals because I needed the walk time to catch my breath.

All of that resulted in a very slow run, which is apparently going to be par for the course going forward, unless and until the chest issue goes away.

Get used to being slow. Training slower, which I probably should've been doing all of these years anyway, so that maybe I can adapt a little better and get a little faster under these physical restrictions.

Walked around with my hands on my head taking deep breaths, then sucking down a bottle of water. Wanted to avoid having the excessive dizziness and light-headedness I had after last November's tri. So I just moved slow, kept walking. Didn't have that issue.


Only two weeks into training, so likely a little slower on the bike than I eventually will be, although the wind had an impact today too. Obviously my running issues, which don't seem to be going away, although they also, thankfully, aren't getting worse.


Very well organized, as always. Started a little later than advertised but I believe that was due to local authorities getting set up on the course. Definitely a fun race I'd recommend to anyone.