swim was great! goal was sub 50 min, which i cleared w/o much effort. got one big gulp of nasty salt water but after that ,settled into a nice, steady controlled pace. swam very straight and sighted well. i started back and to the outside and slowly worked my way closer to the 1st turn bouy. worked real well... not too much traffic. there was some bumping around but not too bad. i was completely psyched to get out of the water in 36 minutes, especially since i was taking it easy! i thought the clock was wrong!

nothing. perhaps try some more OWS in practice but it went much better than i anticipated.

took my time in Ti b/c i wanted to enjoy this race and was 14 minutes ahead of my goal time at this point. had some water, 1/2 cliff bar and some e-caps, as well as a shot of hammer gel. wanted to be sure i was fueled for the bike.

probably don't need so much nutrition, maybe speed it up a bit for next time. all in all, everything came off/went on well.

got caught up in the race and went out way too hard... HR was in the upper 160's. my goal was to remain at 140, and bump up to no more than 145 when passing. well, i finally settled in a bit but was at about 155-158 for the first 30 miles. then settled into 150-152 for the remainder. this was a stupid, first HIM race mistake. i got caught up in the race and felt fine, so pushed it more than i should have. this proved to be catastrophic. regardless, for my bike time i was 1 minute faster than what i had anticipated. oh, had 2 cliff bars and 28,24,24 (per/hr)oz of cytomax on the bike. quads started to tighten up into the last 10 miles in the headwind. i could feel that the run was really gonna suck. shoulders were starting to get really tight, and i could feel the forward position (which i'm not used to) really overtaxed my quads.

need to spend a lot more time in aero position... not at all used to it (only had about 70 miles in this position, as i just got the bars a few weeks ago). also just generally need to get a higher base of fitness for the next race. need to drop about 30 lbs too (207 now).

again, took my time... drank some water, had more e-caps and some hammer gel. heard the finish of natasha, badass, badmann... un friggen believable! that was awesome to hear! what a monster race! cleaned up a bit and got all my running stuff on and went out of T2.

once i'm more competitive i'll speed things up, but for the 1st race this was just fine.

what a complete and utter disaster! this made the exxon valdez spill look like no big deal! ugh! big lesson learned for the 1st race... don't go too hard on the bike! my 1st two miles were just about on target at a 9:01 pace (goal was 9 min pace for the run). then into mile three, my quads were quickly filling with lactic acid. by the 3rd mile marker i just had to stop and shake out the muscles. at that point i saw no possible way that i could run 10 more miles... from my years of cycling... as soon as the acid hits, it's over. i managed to make it to the 4 mile marker/aid station and had to take a bathroom break. did that, worked the acid out a bit in the quads again and as a last resort, chugged a coke. i never tried this in my years of cycling... but heard bevan eyles talk about it on one of the podcasts form epic camp. thanks to bevan, this helped me staggar through the rest of the run. i had to walk every 1/4 mile and looked like i was 9 months pregnant with all the soda in my stomach... but it got me to the finish line. it was pure misery until i got the the end where people were cheering and it lifted me up a bit. was proud to finish but really let down that i sucked so bad on the run. my goal was 1:58:00 and i was at 2:36:26. total disaster!

need a much better base of fitness. also need to be better prepped at the beginning of the run... need more patience in the bike section to run effectively.

staggared like a drunken sailor until i could feel my legs again, about 20 minutes. then just ate some watermelon, a bagel and banana, 2 mountain dews and some water. i was pretty much fine after that, other than the battered ego.


lack of endurance base, lack of patience on the bike, and lack of time in tri specific bike positioning. also need to drop another 30 pounds.


overall a great experience. well organized and run. the course was as easy as this distance could be. i just didn't pace properly or prepare well enough. food was awesome and all the volunteers were great... without their efforts, we couldn't have raced!