For the first time (and hopefully last) ever, I nearly quit in the swim. Running in to the water, I thought I tweaked my calf muscle, and it messed with my mind. Then I started swimming too early, when I could have still been running through the water. I popped back up and started running again. Once I started swimming, I swallowed water on a wave and it just set my mind off to thinking it was a very bad day. I stopped swimming, turned my watch off, turned around back towards shore, and started breaststroking in. Then I saw the women's sprint wave lining up to start and I was trying to get out of their way. My mind start railing at me, saying I would never forgive myself for this. I turned my watch back on, waited for it to sync up with GPS again, and started swimming. At this point I was behind the entire men's wave, so I had to navigate my way through them, which wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, coming out of the water there are a few hundred yards to run in the sand, and I was worried about my leg so I walked through a good portion of that. Then the long run up to T1. Had I not stopped at the beginning, I am relatively confident that I would have probably been 1st or 2nd in the AG in this part of the race, even with the long run up to T1.

Not injure my leg? I would have started a little slower knowing I wasn't really mentally prepared for this one. I also would've kept swimming no matter what. Very disappointing in general.

Did this well, as always.

Nothing.

Not bad, considering I hadn't been on my bike much for a month. Didn't push this to my limits, and still did okay. Got frustrated with a draft pack that passed me. I passed them back, and then they got me again on a hill. This frustrated me more, and I took off again and passed them and left them behind for the rest of the ride.

Not much...I was just trying to get through the race.

Did this well again.

Nothing.

Very slow, but this was by design. PT told me that I could race as long as I didn't push myself here. This was only my second run since the injury, so I just took it easy. Had a Batman mask that I put on shortly in the run to keep myself distracted so I could have fun with the race while not overdoing it. Also had my friend hand me a make-shift cape as I ran by him on the return portion of the run course. I wore that as I ran the final mile or so of the course.

Nothing in this instance...did the best I could coming off of injury.

Just grabbed some food and drinks, stood around watching others finish.


Injured leg, lack of training, lack of mental preparation.


Fun race, as always. Will always hate the .75 mile transition run from the water, but such is life.