The lack of warm-up came back to bite me in the ass here. Once I got in the water I was talking with Shannon and then all of a sudden it was go time. Went out and felt fine for the first 100-200 until I actually had to rely on breathing. Like I said before, I have a hard time swimming in cold water - it's hard to get my breath. About 200 in I started gasping a little bit so I slowed my pace. More gasping, more slowing. Was doing okay until about the second buoy. There was a little pile-up there but got around it okay and as I started going again, I took a hard kick across the side of my face. Good thing for the wetsuit because when I came back around I was bobbing in the water facing backwards. The kayaker came over and asked if I was alright, and I said yes and started backstroking until my head was a little clearer, then flipped over to breast stroke for about 25 yards, and then back to normal swimming. Once I rounded the next buoy I was finally in a good rhythm and looked at my watch as we passed the start. When I saw it said 22', I knew I was screwed on getting to my goal swim of ~35'. Second lap was considerably better as my breathing improved and my pull felt strong. My navigation was also good, something that wasn't the case last year. I did a couple sprints to catch feet, only to have them be feet not worth catching. The story of the second lap though, was that the wind started picking up, making things more difficult with the increased chop, especially after rounding the last buoy and heading in. There were plenty of people taking good mouthfuls of water, myself included. Out of the water in 39'45" for a swim I was/am really disappointed with. The good thing was that my second lap was about 4' faster than my first.

Warm-up and get used to breathing in the cold water. Maybe a neoprene hood? Not sure if those things work or not, but I'm willing to try anything.

Transition was a little goofy. First, there was a long run up kind of a chipseal surface. And then about 1/4 of the transition spots on each row were on a flat concrete surface, and the other 3/4 was in rocks. When I went to rack my bike earlier I found a spot near the concrete with about 4-5 feet between two bikes. I asked a guy to excuse me so I could get in and he said I shouldn't rack there since there wasn't enough room and he was already crowded. Huh? I disagreed, but ended up moving to a different spot. On the rocks. Anyway, trying to balance to take off a wetsuit (that got stuck on my heels) while on rocks is less than fun and added to the eternity I spent in T1.

Rack on the concrete spot. And then figure out a way to get my wetsuit off my heels faster. If I didn't have a bad swim I'd be more upset about this, but the extra 20" it took didn't matter when I wasted plenty more time than that on the swim.

Coming out of transition there are 3 or 4 speed bumps. On the 2nd or 3rd, I'm rolling over it and my back wheel falls out of the rear dropouts. At first I thought I blew a tire, but somehow the skewer got opened up (possibly by someone maneuvering their bike out of T1?) and the bump pull the wheel out. I didn't fall, but unclipped, reset the wheel and then had the thought of a wheel coming loose in the back of my mind for the rest of the ride.

This ride had 2 things: wind and hills. Winds were about 20mph with gusts up to 30mph, and there was 3700' of climbing according to my ergomo. It was also just over a mile long according to my ergomo and talking to others after the race. The roads were smooth in some places and bumpy as hell in others. I lost a water bottle on a downhill because of the bumps.

Once I got going, I felt pretty good right away without going out too hard. Started passing people and making my way through the field. I came out of the water in around 160th place and finished the bike in 44th so that was good. There was one, 3-mile long hill starting around mile 20. Turns out it wasn't all that bad and went by quickly. I had a 12-27 on and didn't use the 27 gear a whole lot. After that there was a stretch of about 15 miles where I was riding by myself and didn't see another soul, which was kind of weird. I started wondering if I was going the right way, but the signs and volunteers said I was so I kept going. The wind was starting to eat away at me though and all I could think of was to not be a wuss since it was probably nothing compared to what they dealt with at IMAZ. Still, it took a lot out of my legs and comparing my watts from the first half of the ride to the second reflects that. It's pretty sad actually. At one point I was going downhill, pedaling pretty good and going around 15mph or so. We ended up with a tailwind for about 3 miles, whch was great! Felt so good. And then we turned and it was a crosswind but at least we were getting close to home. Since I lost a bottle earlier I had to improvise my nutrition and was a little worried since I was going to be behind. I should have taken in about 750 calories on the bike and ended up around 600.

With all the talk about the big hill in the middle, there was one guy that told me about the big hill at the end, which I thought was the hardest point of the bike. You're climbing a roller and then you turn a corner and it pitches up. Got up that, did a fast decent, turned a corner and came into T2. I was riding that with 2 other people, a guy and a girl. The guy pushed to come into T2 a little faster than us but I was fine with that. Then the girl pulled away too but stopped to dismount. Since I stepped out of my shoes and dismounted on the run, I beat her off the bike.

Develop strength for the second half of the ride. Better nutrition - bring a little extra so I don't run out.

T2 was uneventful and went okay. I still need to be faster here though. Got a rock in my shoe and had to take it off and put it back on. Not a lot of time in the scheme of things, but slightly annoying nonetheless.

On my way out the announcer (who commented earlier about my D3 gear and Mike Ricci) saw me heading out and said he had Mike on speed dial and that my instructions were to negative split the run. I got a little laugh out of that.

Rack on the concrete spot.

My goal for the run was to hold an 8' pace, though I wasn't sure how it would go coming off the bike and having hills. Right away though, within the first 300 yards I felt really good . I almost felt like I was running too easy, but knew that was the effect of running at sea level and that my legs would catch up so I didn't want to blow them out on the first lap.

The first lap was fine and I didn't have any problems. Pace felt fine, breathing felt fine. The wind kept picking up though and at one point I was running downhill and looked at my watch to see I was going at a 7'58"/mile pace. At a different point a gust blew me about 2' across the road.

Coming in for the turn around after lap 1 I saw Shannon and she was looking very comfortable on the run. Talked to her briefly when I caught up to her on my way back out, though I can't remember what I said. On the first hill back out my legs started to feel it and I knew it was just dealing with pain from there on. With about a mile left to go there was a girl in front of me that I'd been trying to catch since I saw her at the turn around. Passed her, albeit slowly, and kept going. I swore I could hear her footsteps gaining on me so I started picking up my pace to the extent I could. Turns out it was just my imagination but I was running under a 7'/mile pace at that point. Coming down the chute the announcer saw me, said he talked to Mike and that I couldn't cross the line unless I negative split (which I did) and zipped up my jersey so everyone could see D3 and its sponsors.

Probably nothing. I felt good here and don't know that I could have run this course any better.

At my first HIM last August I ran an 8'20"/mile pace, and at this one I ran a 7'51"/mile pace, which is an improvement of 29"/mile. I'm definitely happy with that and think there still some room to improve.

Wandered around and then went down to the lake to soak my legs in the 60* water. Talked to a couple guys that said both the swim and the bike were long. I knew about the bike, but not the swim. I watched some more people come in, packed up my stuff and headed back to the hotel. The hotel was conveniently located near a bunch of restaurants, one of which was an In-N-Out Burger. I got a double double and if there were a race for downing that thing, I won hands down.


Breathing and warm-up on the swim, more leg strength and nutrition for the second half of the bike.

Overall I had a hard time getting mentally psyched for this race, and didn't really get into it until I was a little bit into the bike. That's not an excuse, but with no excitement surrounding it, it felt like I was doing more of a training day than a race.


Post race food consisted of some pasta and beans. Ick. This was a pretty low key event. It's definitely a challenging course but not one I'd travel to do again. If I lived in the area and wanted an early season HIM primer, I'd consider it.