Portage Lakes Olympic Triathlon - 4th overall

Pushed it hard from start to finish and never felt "bad".  I did get just a couple of hints of hammy cramps during the last 2 miles.  Been a couple of years since I've done the race, and the bike course and run course (2-3 miles of pure trail running) were both new to me.  I was 4th overall (3rd amateur if you exclude Pro Ryan Bates who crushed us all).  All in all, it was a good effort and a good day!

Swim:
I pushed it from the gun and was 2nd to the first turn buoy.  Gassed, I backed off a bit and got into a nice rhythm.  First race  in while where I wasn't getting the shit kicked out of me constantly.  It helped me focus on form, turnover and power.  Occasionally, I chased some feet, but they were either slow or terrible at sighting.  One guy was doing the backstroke - seriously - he was fast (passed me) but then veered way off course and I let him go.  No one else passed me that I saw to grab.

Out of the water around 26:00 by my watch...  saw my time, shrugged, and ran up the hill to transition.  (Last year and all prior years, seeing a time that slow would have upset me, likewise seeing a 21 would get me excited, but I've learned that swim courses are rarely accurate and to stop getting a feeling one way or the other.  After the race, everyone said they thought it was a long swim.

Pretty good transition, except I still get my wetsuit stuck on my left ankle/foot...  lost a little time there...  took a gel in transition and headed out.

That's about the time that the HR monitor (that was working all day yesterday and during warm-up today) decided to stop working and display "lost signal" again...  brand new battery.  I couldn't get my Garmin before tomorrow... so I shrugged again... nothing I can do now, but I hate to lose the data!  Tried a few more times during the first lap to get it to work.  No dice.  Gave up on it.

BIKE:
Pushed the bike, but not as hard as I usually start because of your advice and race plan.  I bounded up the hills (sure I spiked my HR each time) but passed so many people each time.  Felt good, so I kept it going.  Plowed through all of the sprint people left on the course in the first loop, had to make a couple of borderline dangerous passes to not kill my momentum thanks to some slower people riding 2 abreast and such.

Second lap I pushed harder effort, but honestly wasn't much faster in all likelihood... the good thing was it was only Olympic people now and I was eating up spots.  My split showed about 1:09 - and since I've never ridden the course before, I have no benchmark until I see the other splits posted.  My speedometer showed 25.5 miles...It was an undulating course, almost never flat.  A couple sections were very recently chip-sealed and were covered in loose stone... I stayed in the saddle for all of those climbs to avoid any mishap.  I was generally happy with my gear selection throughout.  A few times, I was in the small ring for some climbs.  Again - nothing was flat.  I used every single gear combination at least twice during the bike.

Saw a couple guys from wave before who were riding well and mixed it up with them a bit toward the end of the second lap, which helped us each work harder I'm sure... but some of the second lap was solo / no-man's land... no one to work off of and keep my pace honest.

T2 was uneventful, except a little trouble getting my cold, numb feet into my runners.  I followed Mike Schaffer (SSSMT) into T2 and was worried about that.  He's 41 also (but I didn't know until after the race he started with elite wave 2 waves in front).

RUN:
I chased Mike up the 1 mile long hill and passed him about 1/2 way up, and put in a kick to make sure he didn't get any ideas about trying to stick with me. Mile 1 was 6:40 by my watch... and was all uphill.  At about mile 1.5, the run course took a most interesting route through the woods on a mountain bike path for the next 1.25-1.5 miles.  It was a bit slippery/muddy and was riddled with big roots.  it was a non-stop tripping hazard to navigate.  Mile 2 sign I'm sure was misplaced, because I was about 8:10 for that mile, and about 6:05 for mile 3... so I'm calling both miles about a 7:07, which given the terrain, I was happy with.  Only one guy passed me on the run... a BAFF guy I've never seen before.  No age or anything on his leg, so no clue which wave or AG.

Started the second lap and was starting to feel the fatigue of the effort, and also was without anyone to chase or keep in front of me.  My mile splits were comperable to +0:10/mile.  They only had 1-3 miles marked, so mile "4" included the extra .25 (those with Garmins calculated 6.5 for the course)...  mile 4 was 8:13 (including the extra distance), Mile 5 (long mile) was 8:15 (vs 8:10 last lap) and Mile 6 was 6:16 (vs 6:05 last lap) and then into the finish chute.

Will get official splits later to see their times and if they mark the distances differently.

Weather:  approximately 52F at start.  Light wind.  Lake was calm.  "warmed up" to about 65F by end of race.  Wind stayed light and not noticeable.

NUTRITION:  breakfast about 3 hours before.
Bottle of sports drink in the car on the way down, as well as a cup of coffee and a bottle of beet juice (about 100 minutes before start of race was scheduled).   Sipped on some sports drink before the race, and took 1 caffinated gel 15min before scheduled start per plan.

Nothing during the swim, except the occasional, accidental lake water sip.  :)

T1 - took a caffeinated powerbar gel.

Bike - consumed 24oz EFS during the ride.  Took second gel start of 2nd  lap (about 35 min into bike) per plan.

T2 - Roctane gel (hated the consistency.. won't do that again during a race)

Run:
I consumed 1 gel during the run, about halfway through, and nearly all of 2 x 8oz bottles of EFS on my fuel belt, with a couple of sips of water at 1,4 mile aid station.

Recovery drink, banana, pretzels and water post-race... and a coke on the way home (guilty pleasure).