Just need to work on my swimming, but I have been faster in my last two races than I have ever been, so I am making progress.

You mean other than swim more than once a week for the last two months? Nada.

Rumor is that there was talk of the volunteers setting up a cot for me in transition. Two races in a row I have struggled getting my wetsuit off. It also took me a little longer to put on my arm warmers and I had a little bit of an issue clipping my helmet on.

Leave off the arm warmers. They weren't needed. I think I am going to have myself submerged in baby oil before my next wetsuit race so it just slithers off.

I had a small knee injury about three weeks ago that has kept me from doing much over an hour workout on either the bike or the run. I was very concerned that if I rode the bike hard (like a sprint should be) that I would end up walking the run, so I took it easy on the bike.

This was a little complicated by the fact that I had pasta the night before for dinner and it didn't sit right in my stomach. Saturday before we went to sleep I told my wife that my dinner didn't agree with me. She asked if that meant that she should sleep with a gas mask on. She got her ansswer almost as quickly as she asked it and I din't have to say a word. Aye Carumba.

Anyway, as I am riding along at about mile 4 I start to burp these painful burps. Next thing you know, one of the painful burps is accompanied by a bitter somewhat chunky fluid to the back of my throat. I keep moving and take a drink from the gatorade I have on the bike. HUGE MISTAKE. Here comes what can no longer be referred to as a burp and I end up spitting some junk out. I travel on. I get to the turnaround and start pushiung harder as it is downhill and a little easier. Right around mile 9 we have a repeat of the burp scenario - save the mistaken drink of gatorade. It was very nice.
Got back into the park and my legs felt good, got out of my shoes easily, jumped off the bike and headed into transition.

Ignore all this nutrition jibber jabber. Next race I am having my good ole American Burger. I could have pushed the bike harder.

It was tough to get my shoes on my feet becasue they were still kind of wet and cold. Otherwise, everything was pretty good.

Not sure how, but I have to get my shoes on a little faster. I need to shave 30 seconds here.

Out of transition I had some tightness in my right hip that took a little while to shake. I have long legs and I need to take a full stride to take advantage of that. I couldn't with the tight hip. I pushed on though and did the first mile in 13:42. I knew I needed to pick it up but the hip was really bothering me. Right when it was getting tough I went by the aid station at mile 1. They were having a blast. They had set up the Margaritaville rest stop and had music playing and the women were wearing grass skirts. It was hilarious. It really picked my spirits up and I started to stretch out. They had another water station at around the 1.25 mile mark as you veered onto the trail, but I passed on water and went to the turnaround point. I noticed that one of the officials, and a friend of mine, was sitting there on his mountain bike talking to the girls that were there. I turned and he said something about giving me a 4 minute penalty for cutting the course. I hollered back that if he knew how to write, I would be worrried. Just as I was coming back onto the park road he caught up with me on the bike and asked me how the race was, if I saw any problems and other things. I told him it was good and everyone seemed pretty spread out. He told me that he gave an overtaken penalty to some guy from Wisconsin but he really just gave it to him becasue he heard him bad-mouthing Brett Favre. He peeled away to go to the debreifing and I got back to Margaritaville. I told them that they can't call it Margaritaville if they don't serve Margaritas and they put a lei around my neck and I kept running. I was 25:36 at mile 2 so I had picked it up. The knee was not bothering me so I decided to set a goal to do a 12 minute last mile. Missed it by 5 seconds with a 37:41.

Push it a little more from the start to work out the hip. Is that what I should do? I have never had that before.

Walked around a bit and ate a banana and drank some water.


I need to keep building base and getting stronger.


This is a well-organized race that needs to get some exposure. It is all for a great cause and they go full bore. There was a little bit of a struggle getting the awards all set up and organized that caused a delay and the post-race food could have been a little better, but it is and will be a good race in the future.

How many races have you been to with a hot tub that you can sit in after your race?

Additionally, race awards were given away by Miss Iowa, who has the wave down perfectly, BTW.