The starts were staggered every ten seconds, with participants lined up in roughly their estimated swim time order, from fastest to slowest. I liked starting in the water where you can get a decent push off the wall to get started. After my first pool swim in a tri last year I practiced flip turns and although I'm not the picture of perfection, they really seemed to help. i had to swim over two people at the same time at about the 200 yard mark, which was daunting, but I was much more prepared this year to battle it out. In theory people tap each other on the feet and they let you pass at the wall. I learned last year that is mostly a theory. If you want it, fight for it!

I would have trained more, but third in my age group is nothing to sneeze at and I know I will get much faster as the year progresses. Swim seems to be my best event and my new goal is to finish #1 in my age group in the swim section at least one race.

This time I brought a bright ribbon and sparkly pipe cleaners to attach to the rack and make sure I found my bike. No problems there... but man was I lethargic! I decided to wear socks, which took forever to put on, caught my sunglasses on the bike frame, mentally took a pause and did just about everything wrong until I grabbed the bike and started running with it. I'm out of excuses, so lets just say I was 142nd fastest in T1 and I have plenty of room to improve!

I'm going to try the next one without socks and spend more time training on transitions.

My dreams of a 24 mph pace were squashed at about the 4 mile mark when the headwinds kicked up. I was very glad for the bolt-on aero bars I just had installed. It seemed like forever before I started passing people and I just started jumping up in the saddle and pushing myself to fight through it. Third in my age group was good, but I'm quite sure my run would have been much better if the bike segment had not been such a struggle and fight against the wind.

I may have paced the last couple of miles a little slower to prepare for the run.

I really wore myself out on the bike, so the transition was transition/catch my breath. 164th fastest transition is not the way to gain any spots. I used to use speed laces for the shoes, but found that the lack of stability was hurting my feet. I need to find a faster way to get the running shoes on.

Go faster!

I'm honestly surprised my overall rank on the run is above 50% because it felt sooo slow. My calves cramped up immediately when I got off the bike, lending to the hard pace on the bike and the lack of serious training at, what for me, is the beginning of my season. I didn't practice bricks and it showed big time.

Practice those bricks!

Nice icy towel across the shoulders and big hugs from my wife and my mom who came out to cheer me on! The post race tradition is to celebrate by eating Popeyes fried chicken, which I don't eat except after a race. Man it was good!


Lack of brick training and focus in transitions.


Volunteers are just awesome people! They rocked!