felt awesome - best swim performance in any race

nothing

got out of the water, run up the beach and then had a 300 meter run back to transition area. was able to set shoes up right out of the swim (much like diamondman) caught #1 guy in the mini transition area - he was beat and sat down while putting his shoes on - I got my wetsuit off real easy, shoes on and I was running down to transition. got to the bike and was out of real transition in about 30secs. I was in 1st now heading out on to the bike. It was awesome coming into trans in #1 and having people cheer.

shoes on bike.....running with bike jumping on.......

next year

so got going on the bike and it felt great to be #1. I lead for about 15mins and was riding at about 22/23. I then came to a fork in the road - I missed the small spary painted arrow in the road and there were no marshalls. Well, I chose wrong. I went left when I should have gone right. Thankfully the eventual race winner saw me go left and yelled at me. I stopped, turned around a made my way back to him, we then both stopped and deliberated over which way to go. he said he thought he saw an arrow in the road a few meters back, so we went to find that and decided to go straight. Thankfully he was right, otherwise I would have been screwed - literally, it's 'Deliverance' country down some of those back roads. There was no bike course map to review and no written directions either. Going left followed the main road whereas going straight took you onto more of a dirt road - oh well. Lost a good bit of momentum and wasted a lot of time turning around etc.... Talked with the guy until we saw another race marshall and we knew we were right and then we got back to it. Ended up getting passed by a couple more riders - Gene Bachman caught me at about mile 20 - he had a rear disc and was facing some strong cross winds! was fighting some strong winds coming back in and speeds got down to around 14/15 mph. Glad to get off the bike. Legs felt good though.

duhhhh!

pretty good transition - same story, shoes

overall went pretty well. felt good coming off the bike and took the first 1/2 mile pretty easy getting into the rhythm. took my fuel belt again, glad I did - I tend to need a lot of fluid! not sure how accurate the hals way point was, but base on my watch I ran a negative split 34 / 28. Bettered my run time from TriAmerica by 3/4 minutes which was great.

run faster?

felt good when done, had some water nutrigrain bar gat endur. Got changed, put my bike in the truck and went back for the post race. My wife was in a gazebo giving post race massages - I grabbed a chair by the pool, a big jar of peanuts, an ice cold Yuengling and made myself at home listening to the live music and talking to folks. Kept warming down with numerous yuenglings through the afternoon. a couple of hours after I finished I felt like I needed to warm down more, so I had another yuengling!


carrying 230lbs on the run


This race is awesome for a year end race. I did a whole lot better than I thought I would after not anything since diamondman. Great experience of leading the race - even though it was a small field, my bike was the first to leave the transition area! that felt great for a final race of the year.

Given me inspiration for next year - going to have fun over the winter and then get back to it next year.