Craig (cpjohnson) was our swimmer. He put 5min all other male teams and was 2nd of any relay teams. He smoked it!

Craig through the chip to me and I strapped it on, grabbed my bike (thanks to Laura (gymnutt03) for holding it for me) and sprinted out of T1.

I didn't really have a specific target for speed..but I planned out my effort as follows. Target HR of 145 for first 30min and increase target by 5 beats each half hour. This had me in mid z3 to start and finishing the last hour in z4.

It took me a solid 10min to get my HR down due to the adrenaline and sprint out of T1 raising my HR. I played leap frog with some gal for the first 10+ miles befor dropping her. She either was a very good cyclist or crazy for trying to keep up with a relay cyclist...not sure which, but it was nice to have a pacer.

Somewhere around mile 12 I get passed easily by the one relay cyclist who I thought would be good....he had aero covers over his shoes and a Soloist hooked up with an SRM. I react and follow for about 30-60s but my HR quickly jumped to 160+ and I knew it would be very dangerous to try this so early. I let him go and just hoped he was going out too strong. (He didn't and I later find out he had the 2nd fasest bike split of the day...and that he is the national mtn bike champion of Bermuda.)

I stuck to my plan. The second 30min was very fast as we had a slight tailwind. Most of the second hour was a slight headwind. Outside of a couple turns, I only saw my speed drop below 20 once.

The last 45min - 1hr really required me to focus to keep the effort up, but it was a lot of fun. The longest sustained tempo intervals I have done were 30min...to do 2:30 was a fun challenge. I think efforts like this will pay dividends in the long run.

Kept cadence high throughout...avg'd 100, max 119 and only mashed the last 30min where the cadence was around 88-94.

Max speed 27.1mph. Amazing that the winner avg'd 27+.

Use more bodyglide as my shorts caused a nice chaffing mark.

Sprinted down to Brad. Stuck out my leg so he could take the chip. I was spent.

Brad (weds19) was our runner. He's a stud and set a PR at this distance and beat the run time of the relay team that won. Their runner was the Oly triathlon champion of Bermuda.

Pounded some gatorade and water. Waited for Laura to finish her ride and then went on a short run with her.


A tough hilly 1/2IM the wknd before.


One of my favorite races. It attracts both top pros and top amateurs and the community and volunteers are great. I just wish Vigo would figure out how to run an award ceremony!

GOOD:
- great venue
- plenty of volunteers
- great field of competitors.. a true measuring stick
- free post-race massage
- plenty of port-o-potties at venue and on course

OK:
- Food

BAD:
- Vigo's ability to run an award ceremony..took 90min+...WTF?!?!?
- Traffic leaving...2000+ athletes plus shore traffic..ugh!