What a start! I started at the back, but along the buoy line. Wheee! Being a clyde, I don't have to worry about people swimming over me, but a lot of people bounced off of me during the swim. Didn't really have to sight much at all since there were so many people all around me.

Wish I could have found someone to draft. On the last leg I latched on to one guy who was doing well for about half of it, then veered off in the wrong direction near the end (I think he was headed back to the start instead of towards the finish!)

Pretty casual T1 for me. Wetsuit strippers were about as fast as doing it myself. Had to put my HRM, watch, chest strap, and GPS on here. Stupid Timex watch isn't water proof anymore, so I couldn't use it for the swim. This comes up again on the bike...

Wish I had a separate towel to wipe my feet off - transition was kinda muddy and sandy, so I had to grab a corner of my gear towel to get the sand out from between my toes. I somehow forgot a water bottle to rinse my feet off, and I didn't want to waste my drinking water that was on the bike.

Everyone always talks about how hard the bike course is. These people must be from very, very flat areas :-) Several good hills to get the HR spiking, but not horrible. I spent a lot of time in first gear, that's for sure. Wish I had a compact crank on some of the steeper climbs, as my left knee was really starting to ache.

The rumble strips before each big turn were horrible. I thought I was going to lose a wheel. I wish they could have filled the rumble strips with sand, at least on the shoulder where we were riding.

There were several very rough sections of road, but the race crew did an AWESOME job of going out and spray painting/marking those sections very well, so it was not really a problem.

Oh, and my Timex watch. Piece of crap. I used to love this thing. I'm just starting a long climb, and I go to shift to the bull horns, when my watch falls off my wrist. Yup, the tiny stupid watch strap pins gave out and I lost my watch. Had to stop and go back to get it. Crammed it into my bento box and kept going. But I decided that I really needed it to monitor my HR on the climbs, so I took the watch and shoved it into the top of my aero drink bottle. Hey, that works great! Except that the stupid thing is so amazingly not waterproof that just the splashing of the water on it in that position caused it to die entirely. 3 hours into the race, and I have no watch/HRM anymore. Fun.

Somewhat amusing - every time there were rumble strips or an expansion joint on a bridge, there was at least one aero-drink yellow poofie on the ground. Nobody knows how to install those, and I blame the Profile Design "worst instructions on the planet" for that. I'd hate to ride the course without the poofie in the bottle, would have gotten soaked.


Get a compact crank. Buy a Polar HRM.

Dumbass who racked his bike before me decided to take up about 3 spots with his bike, gear, and wetsuit. Had to spend time shoving his crap out of the way to make room for mine.

Threw my shoes on, but couldn't find my running hat! Damn it, started hunting through my gear back (which was zipped closed since nothing I need should be in there), turning the whole area upside down - ended up being UNDER my gear bag. Argh! Probably took 30 seconds to find it, felt like 10 minutes :-)

Keep transition area better organized? Hire a sniper to keep the people near me in transition in line?

The trail section was my nemesis. My right-lower back was giving me some grief during the first couple of km, and it got much worse on the trail section. I ended up jamming my thumb into my lower back to try and stop the spasm, which actually worked! My then I pulled a hip flexor stumbling on an uphill bit. And there were no distance markers on the trail section. Without my watch, I felt like I was lost in there forever.

Got back out onto the road (I never though I would look forward to pavement :-) and started to cruise. Uphill. More uphill. Ohhh, downhill! Uphill. Downhill a lot more to the turnaround. Oh yeah, that long downhill is up now. And up. And up. Argh! And at the top of the uphill? Back on the trail. So hot and humid in the trees, no breeze at all. Back out onto the pavement, lots of people had sprinklers set up which I took full advantage of. Ran through the last 2 aid stations (was walking/stopping at all of the others.) Got back onto the red shale path that leads to the finish, which seemed a LOT longer going in than on the way out!

Was cruising along, avoiding the thousands of beach goers, spotted the finish line. Couldn't see the race clock until right before I crossed the line. 6:56? Holy crap, I broke 7 hours! I let out a big "yeah!" as I crossed. I had set a goal of 7:30, so this kicked ass considering how hard the course was.

Once I got home and checked my HR data (the watch died, but the GPS and data collector were still working) I saw that I actually stuck to the correct HR zone for pretty much the entire race, only peaking a bit high for the last 3KM. I could have pushed a bit harder in a few sections, but not too bad overall for the first time I have run without my HRM.

More trail running!

Jumped in the lake, had a lower-back massage. Should have really done a proper cool down, my legs still ache to day :-) Discovered a marble-sized blood blister on my big toe, under an existing callous.


Back pain, hip flexor/groin pain.


The new race director made plenty of changes for the better this year. Well organized, lots of volunteers, pretty amazing for his first year doing this.

Could have used a couple of more aid stations on the run. Aid station #3 on the bike had no water, only HEED! That messed me up a bit.

The race sponsors really stepped up with the raffle prices. I think at least 5 wetsuits were given out, plus a bike. Yeah, a brand new bike. Sweet. I won the price just before the bike - got a new race number belt and a running hydration pack. Whizzy!