Well, I wouldnt go as far as to call it a mad house. Last year, this was a regional qualifier and TONS of people showed. No quite as many this year, I think about half.

As always, a well executed race. A couple minor problems, and only one was the RD's "fault." Packet pickup could not be done the morning of the race, had to be the day before. Being summer time, the hotels in the area generally have a three night minimum. And some of us had to work Saturday. That was a bit of a headache and waste of gas.

Swim went off without a hitch, a nice straight 800 up the beach. Not too much in the way of contact or the washing machine effect. Nice smooth swimming. I coulda swam faster, but this was my first open water swim of the year, so I'm not too concerned about it. Ran my butt off and had the fastest T-1 in my AG! Woo!

The bike was pretty flat and fast, with a head wind on the way out. There was a small group of us that were battling it out pretty much the whole way. A route change due to construction on the normal route led us over a bridge that forced a dismount due to the metal grating. That sucked. My chain fell off, and byt the time I got it back on, the group that I had pulled away from passed me. :mad: T-2 snuck up on me, it wasnt all that far from the bridge and I was hammering to catch the group again. Couldnt get my feet out of my shoes in time. Luckily, my rack was RIGHT by the dismount line, so my duck waddline was limited.

The run is straight out on the road and back up on the beach. It's mentally hard 5k, as you can see the turn around on the way out and the finish on the way in. Makes it seem longer. Luckily the tide was out this year, so we got to run on packed sand, where last year we werent quite as lucky. I ran well enough, seeing as I have ben slacking on the run lately :o

Nice solid competition kept me from finishing higher than 7th. I'll take it, though. My time wouldve been good neough for 2nd in the 20- 24 AG or 5th in 30- 34. I'm more than ahppy with my overall performance.

Thanks to the race staff for a well run race!