This is not the official time, because the timing mat didnt work for me and my swim and T1 are together. I did however stop my watch at the swim exit, so I consider this to be a fairly accurate time.
I dont know what it is about mass starts, but it freaks me out!!! I started out in the middle-front of the pack and as soon as we hit the water I get clobbered by a whole bunch of people. At one point I had to stop and tread water so that I could regroup. After that I proceeded with any problems. Overall I was disappointed with my swim, because i think i can do it faster. I will just have to do more tris with open water next year.

I would probably start in the back, find a rhythm and work my way through the pack. Or just work on open water swimming in a group more.

I did pretty well here, partly because I saw that my father in law had beat me out of the swim (I am always faster than him when we swim together) I past a few people on the long hill up to transition. This hill was about 1/4 mile long and consisted of grass and asphalt. I got on the bike fairly well, but had trouble clipping in.

I need to be able to jump on the bike with the shoes already on there.

I think this went pretty well. I pushed hard because i knew this was where I could make up some time. I passed about 8 people and got passed by about 3 others. There was this one guy (who i didnt know was in my age group at the time) that was pretty evenly matched with me. I would pass him going up hills and he would pass me on the flats. I thought his age group # said something in the 30s but I guess I was wrong. If i would have known he was in my age group, i probably would have pushed even harder. I could gone a bit faster I think

Pushed a little harder to leave the guy in my age group

I hard a bit of trouble getting my feet back on my bike shoes after i took them out. I couldnt them to flip back up to parallet to the ground. That cost me about 5 seconds or so. I also had a hard time finding where my bike was supposed to go. It took a second or 2 to find my row. Otherwise, I think it went well. I didnt have any problems getting my shoes on and I was out of there pretty fast.

work on my dismount and remember where my rack is

I felt really good. I went out at about a 7:50 pace. I think i slowed a bit for the second mile because it was really hilly and then finished strong for the last mile. I liked the course even though it was hilly. I did get passed by the guy in my age group and he ended up beating my by 2 minutes and it was all on the run. He ran a 21 min to my 23 min. I am getting faster, but I am not fast enough yet. It will come with time. I am going to focus primarily this winter on running, so hopefully i can come back next year an keep up with the other runners.

run faster?

jogged a bit and stretched. I ate and drank some water (and a beer)


Nothing really. I think it was a good race for where I am at physically. If I lose that last 10 lbs i will be faster, but that is my goal for the winter


I like Ultramax events. Mark and Shandra put on a good race. I plan on doing more of them next year.