Swim out to the first buoy was surprisingly less chaotic than it should have been considering I was in the thick of things right off the bat. I was right up front at the shoreline and when the gun went off I ran in at a decent pace, dolphin-ing my way until a depth that I could swim at. Swam pretty hard right from the beginning. As the shoreline converged on the buoy I got a few swipes on the side but nothing major at all.

Once we rounded the buoy and headed out to the far one, I was pretty free and clear. For the first 100-150m I couldn't even find the buoy while sighting so I simply had faith in the few guys ahead of me and followed their lead.

Once I finally spotted it about 100m out I was able to make a beeline for it. I sighted about every 4-5 strokes and each time I was pretty much spot-on. I rounded the buoy perfectly and then headed back. It was around here that I really hit my stride.

My stroke began really coming into form, I felt fast and my sighting was on, well, relatively. I made it about 100-150m when I realized that I had been heading towards the initial rounding buoy! Fortunately there was a kayaker who got in front of me and started waving wildly. The only good news was that the angle from the initial to the return buoy wasn't all that great, I made a quick correction and as I approached it I really started givin' er.

I was so busy pulling hard on my way back to the beach that I forgot to start kicking hard to get some blood in the ol legs. The legs were pretty heavy and wobbly on the run back to the stadium but I was too busy thinking about the next step to worry much about that. Awesome swim!

Not much. My main goal for this one was to give a full effort without holding back for fear of, well, tiring out and drowning. The final OTC open water swim went a long ways towards building the confidence to give that effort. But if I had to pick things:

-Better technique (duh!)
-Straighter technique so I don't have to sight as often
-Find a draft buddy :)

Not great. Felt pretty slow and painful running it in to get my bike. Once I was back I put on my jersey only to realize I forgot the HRM so I had to slip that on underneath. Got the Garmin on alright, but still, additional time wasted. Finally, I made a split-second decision to not run with my shoes clipped in. I unclipped and put them on there, precious seconds lost seconds lost again. Took my gel and I was off. The run to the mount line went pretty well and the mount itself was good. I took a bit of a run and hopped on cyclocross style, clipped in and I was off.

Remember the right shirt! Even though the long sleeve jersey was probably easier to get on than my sleeveless, it was still a stupid thing to forget.

I'd like to find a tri-top that I can wear during the swim so I won't have to try and fit my wet torso into a tight fighting shirt.

Practice and more practice with running with my shoes clipped in so I have the confidence to do it during race time.

Saving the gel eating for the bike. No reason to waste time doing that standing still!

First few minutes on the bike my arms still felt really sore from swimming, even though they were just resting on the aerobar pads. Fortunately that quickly went away along with my dead legs.

After a few minutes I got over my anxiety that I would do the same, if not worse, than last year where I remember being disappointed that I wasn't able to maintain 30km/h even though the course was relatively straight. What a difference a year makes. Even though on paper I only went, on average, 2km/h faster than last year, it felt like 10. I never looked down at the bike computer and saw anything less than 27-28km/h.

I felt great this entire race. Shifting was great and the ego didn't get in the way of me switching to a small one whenever the cadence dropped. I was pretty much in the aerobars 100% of the time. Whenever I did get out of the aero position it was to get out of the saddle to give my weary butt a rest (which was about every 15 minutes or so).

Thanks to my Garmin I was drinking every 10 minutes, for the most part while staying in the aero position. My passing of people was nice and smooth and unlike last year I never felt like I was passing out of pride or had to work particularly hard to pass anyone.

I was sure to get out of the saddle on the one uphill along Carleton on the way back which went extremely well. My out of saddle has certainly improved to the point where I find it much better than staying in the saddle.

Had my gel on the last return trip in preparation for the run (a good call). I had pre-planned this part and as a result had duct taped a gel to my aerobars. After taking it, wanting to be eco-friendly, I re-attached it to my bars via the tape despite the small drag penalty it would cost me :)

Last 100-200m I took off my shoes and just like last year, it ended up not working out well at all! In trying to slip out of my first shoe, I unclipped myself entirely and had to clip it back in. After having the shoe flop around for awhile I was finally able to step it down and move to the next foot. The other foot came out with a bit of trouble and I pedalled the rest of it in. By this point some guys behind me had caught up and were passing me due to my massive slowdown.

Fortunately, my dismount was perfect. I swung over to one side, came to a halt and ran off. The bad news was that I swung off on the right-side. I ran about 10m before deciding it would be too awkward running the bike in on my left so I lifted it over to the other side. In the process, I knocked off one of the shoes (just like last year) and fortunately a kind soul behind me picked it up and passed it over. I ended up just ripping off the other one out of disgust and running it in. Horrible!

More practice with the shoes! I really wonder how people keep them from flopping around and catching on stuff and ripping off. I must be doing something seriously wrong!

More practice on the bike = more power.

I'd love to get an aerodrink bottle and/or just get better at drinking while staying aero.

Made a last/split-second decision to go with wearing socks when I got back. Probably was a smart idea. Got the shoes on fairly quickly with no complications. Unfortunately, I had no clue where the heck the run out was! I ended up running the wrong way to ask a volunteer who directed me, lost a couple seconds there.

How about figuring out where the run out is?

The #1 reason why I wanted the Garmin: pace! I was determined to maintain a sub 5-minute pace throughout the whole run, regardless of my HR. First couple hundred meters I still felt tight in my butt, started worrying as this was the same problem I had last year before I cramped up, fortunately that quickly cleared up.

As expected, the long shirt killed me here. The sun was out in full force. Thankfully the visor came in really handy in helping to shield my face.

In training, my pace was all over the place. I would constantly be overcompensating both ways. Once I settled in, I looked down and saw I was running exactly a 4:30 pace. Good. Next time I looked down, it was the exact same thing, and again the next time. For the entire run I probably looked down an average of once every 15-20 seconds and literally every single time for the entire run the pace was between 4:30 and 4:33. Incredible! I seriously thought I had done something wrong and it was broken!

I concentrated on my breathing and mentally kept singing to myself (Brian Doerksen's "The River" which I had heard a day or two ago). Whenever I would find myself hurting I would draw on the fact that my past two triathlons, the run has - statistically - been my best leg. I would tell myself that this is your leg, you have to really own it!

I ran straight through the water station and unfortunately that meant I was only able to grab a single cup of water. I drank a teeny bit, and then closed off the cup and carried it with me, anticipating using it later. I carried it all the way until I hit the turnaround, came back and was almost back to the same aid station. At this point my torso was absolutely steaming hot. Seeing the aid station nearing I took my remaining water and dumped it over my head and shoulders. Not much help.

Argh! Even on the way back all I could muster was a single cup of water. Once again, downed a bit and poured the rest on myself. The slight hill about 1km out really killed me and at this point I was really hurting and struggling to keep up the pace but still amazed and happy that I had only slipped 3 seconds from my original 4:30 pace! I was wondering how far out I could start sprinting as I was really hurting and as such I only started my full-out sprint once I got onto the track, probagbly about 100m or less from the finish line. Probably could have done 200-300m out if I had been mentally tougher but then again, I pushed a harder pace than I had really ever done so probably makes sense.

I was so focused on that last sprint that I didn't even think about Geordie being there at the end until I heard him call out my name. I hit the finish line and immediately ripped off my stupid long sleeve to try and get some air!

Not much. Awesome run. Obviously there's the stupidity of wearing the long-sleeve shirt. I wonder how much - if any - of a difference that would have made to my performance? I really do...

Besides that, just more practice. The fact that it's not all that uncommon to see people running 4min/km paces has really inspired me to work harder on my running as a challenge to see if I too can get there.

Not much. A single cup of gatorade (mistake!) along with a bagel. I didn't see Krys anywhere so I just moseyed on over to my bike, packed up and walked out and ended up finding her near the finish.


-Training? Duh!

-Bad transition planning
-Old shoes? (I'd like to think so, he he)
-Bad bike shoe plans



Probably my proudest race yet! The first one was pretty raw and reckless, the second one was long and made me nervous so I was more calculated. This one, I stepped out of the comfort zone a bit, went hard for the swim. Went hard while being smart on the bike and gave it my all on the run. Definitely the upgraded gear helped out (e.g. Garmin, tri-shorts). Gives me great inspiration to train more and also happy to know that I can still have great satisfaction doing short races. Shorter the race, the more intensity!