Been a long time since I posted, but I will get caught up here:

Today was Hy-Vee Tri Day:

Woke up at 415a
Grabbed a big water.
Grabbed a ClifBuilder Bar.
Grabbed a Diet Coke-yup caffeine even on race day, so what.
Out on porch by 4:22 a.m.
My ride arrives at 4:26 a.m.-Thanks Bill!
Drive over to pick up Brother Bob.
Bill drops off Bob and I, we head into Transition-I felt very relaxed and ready for the day. Music is good, day starts very nicely.

Race starts 10 minutes late-not a big suprise here.
My wave starts I think I got the chance to swim next to Ray Charles as at one point maybe 100 yards into the swim a dude swims over me at a perpendicular angle to the course-not sure where he was headed. Swim course was poorly marked as there where not enough bouys on the swim to navigate the course-I am sure it will be better next year. My swim was really pretty slow, I just settled in for a relaxing swim, I also did not navigate well: time 28:23(45 seconds slower than my previous race at this distance). Swimming really isn't a concern as my coach and I aren't sweating the swimmming details. I will swim IM Wisky in 1:05-1:10 and today wasn't about TT'ing the swim portion of the race.

Swim to bike transition-quick and really felt good. Grabbed my gear and hopped on the bike. Headed round Fleur and got to moving. First part of the course I felt as though the course was controlling me instead of me controlling it. I was riding my 11x23 rear cassette, which allowed for pushing some bigger gears-maybe pushing to big a gear to start out. First little uphill on Grand starts at Tech High until the governor's mansion. I really didn't have my bike legs under me yet and my hr popped. Snagged my gel out of my back pocket, ate it as if was a ribeye, and took a swig of h20 and felt better within 5-10 mins. There was a group of people that I rolled up on that were "pack riding" which ticks me off Tri is an individual sport, I work really hard to play by the rules and these bums made it impossible to pass and forced me to sit back and let them figure it out(more on this later). Saw family, friends, and neighbors out on the course. Average speed 22.58 mph-solid effort, felt really great to hammer it out.

t2
quick, solid felt good.

Run
Felt pretty good the first 20 minutes, but realized that I forgot my energy gels back in the transition area-quickly start thinking about what my chances of finishing the run well with less then 500 calories consumed all day. Answer: not very likely. With the course not having one single mile marker it was tough to figure out how to conserve energy, and I quickly overheated and ran out of calories. The second loop still is a fog, as I was confused, grossly hypo-glycemic and hugely "bonky". Bonking sucks-not much else to say other than I felt like I was dangerously close to getting a trip to the medical tent. Didn't walk all day until the top of the hill-less then 300 yards from the finish line. If I didn't walk i was close to crawling as I was a hurtin' unit. Finished with 9:57/mile which sucks. I was shooting for 8:30/mile-today was a lesson in race nutrition.

Got to the finish line, got water, ice, and food. It really helped quickly!

Total time 2:38

Logged on to race site to find that I got a two minute penalty on the bike-must be a mistake! that is utter non-sense -the bums that were pack riding needed a kick in the butt and let those of us that were moving get by. This is the last I will post about this but the ref made the wrong call today! Rant over. Plus I can't be too angry as brother's Reed and Jason-got screwed today on the run-too complicated to explain but the three of us got the wood today.

Congrats to fellow Rassy athlete Amy H. as she had a killer day and either got a podium finish or just missed the podium. She passed me on the bike, but I was able to sneak past her until the run where she blazed past me! She looked great, and did Rassy's proud.

Recovery week starts today-next Saturday 100 miles up in 'Boji on the bike.

jeff