Predicted Temps: low 54, high 72

Pre-race:

• Good warmup - get your run in, adjust the wetsuit, they do allow for water warmups.

• Nothing special, good chance that the swim is short. Take it a little easy up front. Focus on form

Bike Plan:

• 30oz in center - 300-400 cals
• 20oz in bottle - 250-300 cals
• 2 500ft climbs. Seems pretty hilly, but 4 notable climbs, only 2 of which are large.
• Take it easy for the first 5 miles, only start to build heat on that first climb and keep it seriously controlled

Run Plan:

• 1 big climb at mile 4.7
• a double dip at the end, about 100ft climb and then a dip.
• After the dip it is all downhill.

Race Report: Day before:

• Rare, but I was feeling really good.
• Shake out bike ride was solid
• Swim was great.

Pre-race:

• Ate 3 hours pre race, bananas, applesauce, gatorade. Perhaps a little less than normal.
• A bit messy, longer drive to the place in the morning than expected.
• Tons of parking and lots of bathrooms :)
• No great way to warm up with a run, limited green space. But did get in the water.
• Not super organized race. Giving out swim caps at the swim start. Missing chips etc.

Swim (31:16, 2nd in age group, 10th overall):

• Overall pace: 1:28/100
• Got a good line off the start. It was me and one other person kinda close for a while. One guy took off like a bolt and there was no hope of staying anywhere near them.
• Settled into a good pace. Clear space in front of me for quite some time. There was 5-6 minutes between waves so it took some time to catch up to people even the slow people in that wave.
• Spent some time with one other swimmer but they couldn’t go straight. I’d follow a little but then see them veer off and ultimately it was better to swim by myself. I am pretty sure I beat them.

Bike (2:37:18, 2nd in age group, 11th overall):

• Very bumpy start. Knocked the hydration open and spilled everywhere, loosened the velcro and I needed to hold the straw in place on bumps for the rest of the day. Lost the cover for the rear storage unit.
• Averaged 223 watts, normalized 235.
• Never really felt all that comfortable or powerful out there. Power on hills felt weak but analyzing it afterwards was ok.
• Back was sore when applying higher power.
• Speed on downhills was excellent.

Run (1:36:28, 3rd in age group, 19th overall):

• Back and ankles/calves were not happy with the first few miles of the run. It wasn’t like it slowly got better. It was stable bad until around mile 4 when it started improving and then almost went away by mile 7 and mile 8 was my fastest mile.
• It was clear that I was gaining on people on the second half of the run and felt strong doing it.

Overall: Feeling good. I was second officially by 30 seconds. That’s the dropped chain I had early or any number of other little things that happened (got directed down the wrong chute and had to run back around, took 10 seconds). I’ve had a tougher month of training. The work has been fine but I’ve been tired and the motivation has been lower. It felt great to get such a good result after not feeling great for a month and having a tougher bike ride. This race felt similar to the Florida race earlier in the year where I raced a smart race and get into a position where I could really run hard for the last half of the run.

Things to improve:

• I think the calories in the mix on the bike was a little too high and I should use sodium citrate (which I have, just did not bring).
• Tape down the rear storage cover.
• Test the bike seat a tiny bit higher.

Things that really worked:

• Cheering other people on.
• The new gels on the run. Went down well, seemed to work.
• Sighting, other than when I was following the fast but zigzag person my lines are really quite good.
• Recovering from the back/calves/ankles pain. It was not stretching, but giving them time and making sure I kept good form.

• half
• Race Report
• Race Plan