I felt very good about this swim. I got out to a good start and put the cruise control on. I started passing the womens wave well before the 1/2 way point and had to do a lot of maneuvering through the bodies. When I got about 2/3 of the way I noticed someone from my wave passing me. I jumped on his feet and he pulled me the rest of the way home. This person ended up being the winner. Anyway, he had a great draft. :) We came out of the water in 20:49 and had to run a couple hundred yds to T1.

Find some feet to follow earlier, train more swimming.

My transitions are terrible. I was taking my time because this race was about having a blast and not worrying about speed.

Practice transitions next year!!

I am not going to push this ride! I am not going to push this ride! I got off to a nice start, felt very good and spun right up the first hill. I mentioned to a couple guys standing up trying to push big gears that spinning saves energy but they ignored me. I went by them singing "spinning, spinning, just keep spinning, what do we do we spin....spin....spin!!" I hope it stayed in their heads. :) After the hill came a steady 1% or 2% grade for a good few miles and I was spinning at 100+ rpm's feeling very good. I looked at my HR and saw 167 and thought "so much for an easy ride". RPE was still pretty comfortable but HR was high, oh well. I was coughing up a bunch of yellow goop from my lungs the entire ride, I had hoped I could leave it all in the water. I tried firing a snot rocket but ended up gooing the side of my face and arm. YUK!! I did manage to wipe most of it off with my water. I passed a bunch of people from the waves in front of mine and tried to say something to everyone. Have a good ride, looking good, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, nice bike, who ordered the headwind?, is this the way to the food?, etc. I came upon a friend that always seems to kick my but in swimming and slowed down to say hello. After asking a few questions and trying to strike a little talk she looked at me and said "I can't talk now Bob!". So I biked on. On the second big climb I was thinking of my extra 7 lbs and if I could just get my stomach jiggling more uphill and forward than backward I could take advantage of the jelly belly. (Okay, my mind was wondering!) I did take advantage of the added lbs on the downhills! The long course merged with the sprinters in the last 5 miles or so and I was really moving past these riders. The course took us through a college and over a few speed bumps. I noticed a bunch of scrungies from aero bottles at the first one and laughed. I also noticed about 5 or 6 riders slowing way down to go over the bumps. I think I surprised them as I bunny-hopped the first bump at about 20 mph. I did the same at the second and someone made a comment that I didn't quite hear. My legs felt great, body felt great, and I was definitely going to take the run easy!! I took my feet out of my shoes and rode the last 1/2 mile with them on top of my shoes. There was a car in front of me that ruined my photo op! It couldn't have been a Ferrari or Porsche either, it had to be a red Dodge Neon. What a way to finish the ride.

Nothing! I had fun and had my fastest bike speed to date in a tri. No complaints!

138th in T2. I need to work on this. I wasn't pushing this transition at all. I need to start using Yanks and practice these more!

Practice, practice, practice.

This was a lot of fun! I didn't have a chance to calibrate my new Polar so I knew it wasn't going to be accurate. I set it to split every .5 miles and the first 6 splits were within 3 seconds of each other. I got passed by a few Oly's and mentioned how strong they looked as they went by. I then thanked them for not being 40!! After my first loop I met up with Kameron (Kam32) who was looking very comfortable and strong. She was having a side stitch and I ran with her for a little bit, maybe a mile or so. I pushed the last couple miles and was shocked when I saw I took 7 minutes off my best Olympic!

If I wanted a faster time I would have pushed the run more. On this day, I wouldn't have done anything different.

I went to the ART (Active Release Technique) tent and got my back worked on a bit. Stretched, hung out with BTers, congratulated some finishers and had a lot of food!


Nothing but my not wanting to go faster.


This is a great way to end the season. The race venue is awesome and Linda Miller does a fantastic job!