Overall, I am very happy with my swim in this race, especially because I had to take some time away from swimming over the course of the past two months because of my mysterious shoulder injury. I was able to draft off of some people and I made a lot of good decisions when it came to pacing.

The one thing about the swim that was a bit annoying was that they basically combined what was supposed to be two waves into one. This made the water very crowded which is something I am not too used to. My goggles were kicked, almost off me head, in the first 300 yards. I was able to overcome this and keep going.

Overcoming adversity would soon become the theme of this race for me.

Horrible, absolutely horrible.

As I said, I had a prime location on the rack. Right at the end, facing the "Bike Out." That is why I got up at 3:45, that is why I didn't waste time getting ready to go and that is why I painstakingly packed my car and my stuff the night before. However, when I got to the transition area, I was disgusted to find that some moron put there bike on the outside of the rack, leaning against the rack (and my bike) and enclosing all of my stuff between their bike and mine. My bike ended up getting stuck on their stupid cardboard box full of crap and my helmet was on the ground. My water bottles had been moved and I couldn't easily get to my shoes.

The T1 was easily 1:30 longer than it should have been because I had to waste so much time looking for and sorting out my stuff. I know it sounds like a cop out... but, what the hell, it IS a cop out. That kind of behavior is simply inexcusable. And to be totally honest, I blame the race organizers/directors just as much as the asshole who screwed up my stuff. They should have had people administering the transition area.

I used to hate it when I would get to a race and find out that we were assigned racks, now I know why the better races that I have done do that. In many ways, this ordeal really kind of screwed up the remainder of the race for me. I wanted so badly to break 2:30.

Wait for the moron to get out of the water and beat the shit out of him.

Because of the debacle in T1, I figured I had to make up some time. I knew I had to be off of the bike and on the run course at 1:30 into the race to have any shot of breaking 2:30 for the race. As a result, I think I pushed waaaaay too hard. I was flying up the climbs, passing people left and right and screaming down the descents, topping out at 38.4 mph.

This was a great, fast ride for me, and if it were a stand-alone bike race, I'd be thrilled, but. I let my psyche get the best of me and I left myself with little, to nothing, left in the tank. But I figured, that would be alright because there would be plenty of Gatorade and gels on the run course to refuel and rehydrate.... right?

Stay a little more within myself.

T2, was lot like T1, again, all my stuff in the transition area was a mess and it made the whole thing very disorientating.

Again, I wanted to break 2:30 and even after all that had already happened, there was still a chance at the beginning of the run for that to happen, but then it all went downhill. This is a pretty tough course, especially since there was no gel and/or gatorade on the course. It would have been good to have some calories available. I started to overheat and get very fatigued during mile 3 and I just kind of lost my pace and form.

Go easier on the bike so I could start the run fresher.

Bring my fuel belt so I would have more control over nutrition.

Sat and relaxed after walking around a bit.


Transitions and poor decisions on the bike portion of the race.


I have very mixed emotions about today's race. I am very disappointed that I didn't break 2:30. Especially since I did so much work this year on my running and I have gotten a lot faster over long distances (at least I have my PR in the half marathon to hang my hat on).

I did still finish in the top half overall, and the top half of my age group, which is always my goal.

I just think they could do a much better job organizing this race and providing more on the course.