Saw somebody do something to start that I had never seen before. Rather than jumping in and starting with no momentum, she sat down at the edge of the pool and push off while going in headfirst. I think that only works if they stagger you just right and you don't have to cross a timing mat at the start (guess DA couldn't afford it), but it worked. I liked being able to push off the wall.

My plan was to sprint the first 100 and try and catch the guy in front of me and just ride his feet the rest of the way. So I caught him at 100 easy enough, but he was going too slow. I passed him at 150 and tried to move up to the next swimmer, but they were long gone. I think the guy I passed drafted off me. Turnabout is fair play I guess.

Never had any problems with this swim. Nice change. I got out of the water feeling good. Sean was there saying something about shrinkage. Seinfeld quotes, nice.

Not much, I don't think I could have caught the swimmer 2 ahead of me since he swam a 4:45. My actual swim time was about 5:20, then the 10 seconds to get out and cross the mat. I was happy with it.

Boy, this took forever. I got my helmet and sunglasses on no problem. Arm warmers stuck a little bit. But those tights...wow. I couldn't get them on. I finally pulled them up to my waist, but the crotch was still down around my knees. So much for shrinkage. After a few carefully placed tugs it was on OK.

Then I grabbed my race belt and headed out. Crossed the mount line and hopped on. Somehow my pedals were not in the right place and I couldn't seem to get in them. I pedaled on top of them with both feet trying to make them flip over so I could clip in. That probably cost me 30 more seconds.

No tights
Get in the pedals the first time

Took me a while to get up to speed thanks to my pedal snafu. Once I did, I was zooming. There was a pack of 4 or 5 of us that were together for most of the 2 laps. We didn't do anything illegal, but there was lots of legal drafting - the kind where you ride up behind someone into the draft zone and then at the last second you whip out on the left and pass them.

The first lap there weren't a lot of folks out there to pass. Managed to hold my own with the pack without blowing up. I was stronger on the hills than they were, but they would catch me on the flats.

Lap 2 was better. Lots of mountain bikes and slower riders to pull in. My plan was to charge the last 2 hills on Bear Creek and try to drop the 4 riders in the pack. When we made the turn onto Bear Creek, the only girl that was riding with us crashed. She was ok, but she never caught up.

So it was just me, a Cervelo with a disk, a Guru, and a Trek. Time to show the power of Companero. I made my move on the first hill and dropped the Guru and the Trek. The Cervelo caught me at the bottom of the hill. So I charged the second hill and kept mashing until I could see his shadow fading behind me. That was fun.

Nothing. I've never ridden that fast in a race before. It was a minute faster than the last time I raced on this course, so I'll take it.

Not much to say here, although I did have to sit down to put my shoes on. One day I'll try one of these sockless. Until then, I'll sit down to put my socks on.

Meh.

For a run that I felt like crap on, I did very well. I was still tasting that Clif bar the entire time. I figured if I was going to yak it up, I might as well do it while running hard. As usual, the first mile I passed a clump of people. I didn't use my normal motivational tactic of counting people. I was just focused on pulling them in one at a time.

I thought about stopping at the aid station and getting some water. Not for thirst, but to see if I could settle my stomach. When the time came, I decided against it. I knew I had a decent run going (slower than the last time I did this course, but still pretty good).

Met Ken (kproudfoot) on his way back. Easy to pick out a guy that's 6'8", whether he wears a Javelin suit or not. Hit the turnaround at 10:58, so I tried for a negative split. Saw Craig (docshock1964) on his way to the turn and an AG win. Then I saw Craig Ottman, the eventual overall winner, in his A&M Tri Suit. Wow. He was moving. I knew when I heard footsteps behind me it was him. He was running at a 5:40 pace. Whoa.

I just kept plugging. The last mile really hurt. The McGurggles were really getting to me. No time to stop. Pass this guy. Catch him. Go. Remember that you're mad at Dallas Athletes for being cheap with their races. C'mon. Go. Vamos a matar.

Finished. Want Tums and then a cheeseburger.

Nothing. I won my frickin' age group. That's never happened before. Sure, it wasn't my best run, but not every run can be.

Walked around, stretched, talked with Ken and Craig. Ate a pancake and drank some nasty Vitamin Water while waiting on Sean to come in. He PRd.


Basically no bike TITS in a month.

Low run volume thanks to MFA.


DA puts on a pretty good show. All of the volunteers were in costume and they did Halloweenish music the whole time. They do a good job at theme Tris.

But...I just wish they weren't so cheap. Using unused race numbers from earlier races for the last race of the year. Sheesh.

And I wish they would have stopped playing the music when the awards were going. I almost missed my name.