Good swim considering the minimal training I've done this year. I felt like I raced a smart race.

I lined up on the inside front like I always do for this race, and went fairly hard for the first 100 yds or so to drop most of the people in the wave, then I shut it down into a fast cruising pace. At that point, there were only a few guys around me as we approached the first turn buoy, leaving mostly open water around it for a quick turn. Just after the firt buoy, we started catching people from the wave in front of us. By halfway between the 2 buoys, we got into the bulk of the previous wave. Because the swim is only 500 yds, and only a handful of faster swimmers in a wave, drafting is tough, because the odds of being in the right place at the right time to latch onto the feet of someone just slightly faster than you are slim. I wasn't lucky enough to have this happen, so I just had to keep passing people. By the 2nd turn buoy, we were catching people from 2 waves before us, and things were a little more crowded, but it still wasn't too bad making this turn. From there, it was a straight shot into the beach for the swim exit, so I started picking up the pace again for the finish.

I swam until I knew the water was below my knees, then jumped up and started running while stripping off my goggles, cap, and top half of my wetsuit.

This race has a run of about 100 yds from the swim exit to the timing mat at transition, so the swim split includes this run. It's across a grass area, up steps, along a deck for 50-100 feet, then up a paved path to transition. The steps and deck are a little slippery when wet, so I took it easy to avoid falling.

The only way I could have gone faster is with more training time, and being lucky enough to find someone in my wave slightly faster than me to draft.

This is where my race ended. This was my son's 2nd triathlon, and his "A" race for the year. He was racked next to me. As I got to our spots, I noticed that his back tire was flat. Since he was starting 3 waves after me, I figured I had about 9 minutes until he arrived, and because this was his big race of the year, my 4th time racing it, and knowing that I wasn't in condition to race my best anyway, I may as well take the time to fix his tire for him.

I grabbed my CO2, and inflated his tire. It immediately went flat, so I knew I had to change the tube. I took his tire off to replace the tube, and noticed that the bead was chewed up a little. I remembered that he said he had a flat 2 weeks earlier when I was on vacation and had trouble getting it back on. I figured he must have damaged it then. I was a little concerned that this would be a problem when I put in a new tube, but went ahead anyway.

I got his spare tube in, inflated it with his CO2, and just as it reached full pressure...BLAM!! The bead was shot, and it caused this tube to blow. I thought about it for a few seconds, and decided that him finishing was more important than me finishing, so I took the back wheel off my bike and put it on his, and put my spare tube in his saddle pack.

My 9 speed cassette wouldn't match up perfectly with his 8 speed derailleur, but it would get him through the race. I ran back down out of transition to the paved path from the swim to cheer him on. I quickly explained what happened as I ran along side, and told him to just go race!

I was out of the race, but I got to see my son race, so it was worth it. He went on to finish about 6 minutes slower than his goal time, but solidly in the MOP.

Not a thing.