I got beat up more at this race than during the Sugar Bowl Tri. People were constanly hitting, a few times in the head. Once came close to knocking off my goggles. I am sure that having the goggles on under the cap help keep them on. Some other person grabbed onto my ankle, for some reason, so I had to kick hard a couple times to get them loose. The turns were horrible, I got stuck each time in a pack of people that was basically not moving and had to tread water to get around the buoy.

The water was a little wavey, but not as bad as what we swam in the previous weekend. After the first turn, I noticed three guys holding onto the surf board of one of the life guards. It turns out that at least four guys had to be plucked out of the water.

I had a goal of maintaining a long glide and slow stroke rate, and breath every fourth stroke. I tried numerous times to slow down my rate and take bigger breaths and get into my rythem. But being kicked and grabbed soo much, it would only last a few strokes and then I would lose focus.



I need to do training lap splits that start out faster, then smooth down into my desired stroke rate, stroke length, and breathing rate. I think this my help in simulating race swim starts.

Came out of the transition ahead of Ken. I was goinig to keep a light pace until after the Bayou St. John bridge to help my legs get warmed up. But, he passed me up on the downside of bridge. I had been taking a pace that was pretty easy up to that point as I was maintaining about 25mph with little effort. As he started to go up the hill by the swim hole, I came up to him and yelled for him "to get a move on it." After passing him the first time, I realized I would rather have him take the lead, as I could then gauge how hard I needed to push without pushing too hard and maybe conserve a little energy for the run. I stayed back just out of the drafting zone till the first turn around the shelter. As we started approaching I could see him start down shifting and braking, so I swung out to the right and maintained speed, as he turned behind the shelter, I over took him on the inside with ease. I look over and that is when he started yelling something about me being sneaky. As we come out of the turn, we had about a 8 knot headwind direct headwind out of the east, lately the wind had been NNW to NNE making it a crosswind. I let him pass me and dictate the pace. I would over take him on the hills, then he would pass me up afterwards. I focused mainly on just keeping a constant exertion level up and down the hills and used cadence of 100 to 105 going up the hills. Using the down hills to refill the aerodrink when needed. As we approached the naval center for the first time, I got an idea of how he was going to handle the climb through the levee twice. I decided to push the pace after the turn to see how long it would take him to catch me after we passed the research center. I was hoping to gauge this in order to sprint the next time around into T2 with a little lead on Ken. Lap 2 was pretty much identical to lap 1 with the "cat and mouse" routine with Ken. As we approached the Naval Center the second time around, I took take the jump on him at the first levee and push the pace until T2. Turns out I beat him on the bike by 2 seconds. :D

Reduce the water bottle concentration from 2 Scoops HEED to 1 Scoop HEED. My stomach couldn't digest the 2 scoops with the increased HR over my training pace.

Entered T2, racked bike good, shoes went on good. Fumbled with helmet coming off a little.

Not much, as this was one of my best tranisitions to date.

The run went south pretty fast. After coming out of T2, I could feel the left side of my stomach start cramping. Legs were ok. I managed to push for about 1/2 mile then I had to slow. That is when Ken caught me. I kept pace up to the 1st mile marker, but then decided I was going to have to walk. I walked/ran for pretty much the rest of the run.

Push through the cramping if possible. Mentally I let them beat me. I tried to focus on just making it to a point 50 yds up, then refocus on another point 50 yds up. But that just worked for 2 minutes, then I had enough. Had to walk. Ended up walking 3 seperate times after I tried to run again.

Talked with Ken on how he wooped me on the run.


Heat, stomache cramps from bike nutrition.


Goodie bags contents consist of a Gatoraid Water Bottle and some entry forms to organizers other races. BOOO YOU PEM.

Well, since this was the last Abitaman for the year, I have created goal times to beat for next year's race if I compete in them. This might be one of the few positive aspects to my last two race finishes.