I had a moment of panic just before the race started. I have asthma, and it is often aggrevated by swimming, and I generally use an albuterol inhaler just before getting into the water. Unfortunately, I forgot it until just minutes before the first wave was to begin. I briefly considered going back, but I would have had to fight through the crowd and run back the several hundred yards to the transition area, and I was in the second wave. I decided I would just have to do without it and hope for the best. Luckily, I had no problems.

I lined up in right in the middle of the pack. This was the biggest race I had been in and there was a lot more commotion at the start than I had seen previously, but it didn't really bother me.

My plan was to go out at what felt like a nice comfortable pace, then slow down more. This was only my second race with an OWS and my first oly. In my first race with an OWS, I went out way to hard and struggled the last part of the swim. I was determined not to repeat that today.

I had a little trouble finding open water the first 200 meters or so, but I was able to settle into a pretty good pace. The first half of the swim was pretty uneventful. I reached the turn in a little over 15 minutes. I was a tad disappointed with the time, but I was feeling really comfortable which was my main goal, so I just focused on trying to maintain my rythmn.

At about 1100 meters, one of the first women, who started 8 minutes after my wave, swam right over the top of me. Damn she was fast.

I was feeling really good and decided to push the pace a bit between the 6th and 7th buoys, but otherwise just tried to keep the pace comfortable. This was about as much fun as I have ever had swimming. Ever since I started swimming, I have wanted to get to the point where I could just swim easily at a comfortable pace, and finally I was doing it. I just remember being extremely happy. I knew at that point I was going to be able to meet my goal of coming out of the water still feeling good.

Not a thing.

I am still a rookie, but T1 has been a real weakness for me. In my first 2 races I was in the bottom quarter in T1 time. Today, I was 379 out of 620. Still bottom half, but I guess I am improving. The sun had come out, so I took the time to put on sun screen. I should have got the continuous spray type, but only had the spray pump type. This cost me a little time. Socks, shoes, and helmet went on smoothly, and I was off.

Purchase sunscreen with continuous spray instead of pump

My plan for the bike was to keep my heart rate around 150 except for the steeper hills. This was only my third race and my first oly and I am still trying to figure out how hard I can push the pace without blowing up. Despite my plan, my heart rate hovered around 160 for most of the ride (cue ominous music).

The first 4-5 miles had one significant hill but was otherwise relatively flat. I was passed by a few people but was definitely passing more than passed me. I tried to take it somewhat easy here and resist the urge to try to keep up with those passing me.

At around the 4.5 mile mark, you get a clear view of Devil's Hill. It is definitely steep but fairly short. After a brief sharp decent, it is then uphill for another mile or two until you reach the turn onto Route 3A.

Everyone talks about the hills on the bike course, and it is certainly a challenging course, but being from Colorado, I ride hills like these on most of rides. I think my training on the hills definitely paid off. On the hills, I was able to catch and pass most of those who had passed me on the flats.

At about mile 10, you pass the only aid station on the bike course. This was my first attempt at a bottle handup. I was so focused making sure I got the bottle that I didn't pass any attention to what was in the bottle until it was too late, and I ended up with a bottle of Gatorade instead of water. My plan was to get my calories from GU and take e-caps, and avoid the Gatorade. But with the Gatorade in hand, I poured it into my aero bottle and continued on (cue ominous music again).

The rest of the bike course for me was just a lot of fun. It was constantly up and down, with almost no flat spots the rest of the way. I played leapfrog with several people. They would pass me on the flats and then I would catch them on the hills. Before I knew it, I saw the sign to turn back into the park.


In retrospec, I pushed too hard on the bike. Although it felt really good at the time, I think it really negatively affected me on the run. Since this was my first race at this distance it was really hard to know how hard to push it, so I am pretty happy with bike portion of the race.

I didn't realize how close I was to the state park entrance, and I was late in getting my feet out of my shoes. Once you hit the park entrance, there were a couple of sharp turns and I had trouble getting one of my feet out of the shoe, and it made for an awkward dismount. I also lost a few seconds by turning one row too soon when looking for my transition space. Other than that, it was helmet off, hat, shoes and race belt on, grab the rest of my e-caps and go. I still ended up in the middle of the pack in T1 time, so no worries.

Do one extra walk through to make sure I know which row to turn on when coming back in with the bike.

Initially, I felt OK. My legs felt better than I expected after a hilly bike course, and my turnover was good. At the 1 mile marker, I looked at my watch and it said 8:10, and I got really excited as this was faster than I expected. Visions of breaking 2:50 started to dance through my head. Minutes later the trouble began.

By the time I began the run, it was really warm and extremely humid. The positive side of living in Colorado is that I get lots of hill training. The down side, at least as far as this race is concerned, is that I have lost the ability to deal with humidity. I was popping e-caps like crazy and I was drinking a ton, but I don't think it was enough.

I first begin to have GI issues and started to desperately look for a porta-potty. Found one quickly and stopped. I then felt better for a bit, but it wasn't long before I needed to stop again. After the second stop, I got a break from the GI issues, but my pace had slowed considerably.

Around the 4 mile mark, my right hamstring started to cramp. I tried to walk a bit in hopes that it would go away, but it didn't. I then tried running really slowly, but it got worse. I stopped completely for a few second and tried to stretch it out, then walked for a bit.

Thoughout the run, I had been looking for wife, and at about this point I saw her. She started in wave 5, 12 minutes after I started, so that meant that she was only a few minutes behind me and was having a great race and I tried to cheer her on. I was limping so badly at this point that she thought I had injured myself and she started to stop. I assured her that it was just cramps and for her to go on.

By this point, I had forgotten about breaking 2:50, but I still had a chance at 3 hours. I had 22 minutes to finish the last 2.2 miles, which would be no problem if only my hamstring would loosen up. After walking a bit more, I set off running again. I guess all of the e-caps I had taken begin to help, and the hamstring, while still not happy, let me run. I continued on gingerly while chanting to my hamstring "don't cramp, don't cramp." Finally, I made the turn off the road and onto the trail to toward the finish line. I didn't attempt any sort of a finishing kick for fear my hamstring would seize up again, but I did manage to finish strong and with a smile on my face.



I lost about 3 minutes with the 2 porta potty stops and a several more with the hamstring cramping. I am not sure what to blame it on. It could have been the Gatorade that I had not trained with and certainly hadn't intended to mix with GU. More likely, I just pushed too hard on the bike, especially given that the conditions were much warmer and considerably more humid than what I had been training in. I think that if I rode the bike course 2-3 minutes slower, I might have been 5-8 minutes faster on the run

Just after crossing the finish line, they handed out cold, wet towels, which felt great. Warm down consisted of trying not to throw up while waiting for my wife to finish. While waiting, I was both hungry and nauseous. I later had a hamburger, 2 bananas and some ice cream. I wonder how much I would have eaten if I hadn't been nauseous. Later, we went back to camp Wicosuta and lounged around the pool with the kids which felt great.


My inexperience with the distance probably led me to push too hard on the bike which hurt my run. Drinking the Gatorade didn't help. Overall, despite the problems, I was really delighted with how the race went and I was very happy to break 3 hours on a tough course.


This was a really well run race.