Let us start this race report by stating that it was a bit nipply outside. Now I'm from the north and all, and appreciate the sub-60 degree weather for most races, but you know you are in for a treat of a race when the water is 20 degrees warmer than the air!

Eagerly awaiting the start of my swim wave I quickly realized that my lack of wetsuit put me in the minority of racers. I don't know what all the fuss was about, I mean the water was 74 degrees and as mentioned above it was 20 degrees warmer than the air. Alas, if I've said it once I've said it a hundred times, I need to work on my swimming. Particularly open water swimming. I must have veered off course three times and had to stop half way through to secure my neoprene timing-chip anklet (although being a certified SCUBA diver I perhaps could have found a way out of paying the $30 or so replacement fee...). As I drew near to the swim exit I found myself in a bit of a quandary: get out and freeze my arse off or stay in the water where it was warmer. I chose the former...

As I got on my bike and approached 26-28 mph on the downhill that is right out of the bike start I realized that if I could have had a wetsuit for the race, then was when I needed it. However, once the terrain settled down I found my actual race pace, I started to warm up and things got better. The next 20 or so miles were spent passing many people that had dropped me in the water. I guess that's the advantage of coming out of the water so far behind: the nice confidence boost you get from passing all those you didn't see pass you in the water. Overall it was a pretty good bike leg on a moderately challenging course.

The run was a nice conclusion to a moderately harsh race. I managed to find a nice pace early on and just decided to hold it until about 200 meters from the finish. I was ready to coast on in when some older (late 30's I think) dude comes from behind and says "Let's go!" and he starts sprinting for the finish line. So what's a young brash male like myself to do other than show the old guy who's boss? So I sprinted back up to him and he tried cutting me off on two sharp turns that lead into the final stretch before the finish line. Having none of that I blew by him with 30 meters to go and then stopped when I crossed the timing-chip mat. Doh! That wasn't the finish line. The finish line was 10 meters away where the clock was. Oh well, I still made sure he knew who was boss!

So just to recap: swim sucked, bike was good once I got going and the run was a very relaxed effort minus the 200 meter sprint at the end. Despite some of the little nuances of this race it was my best performance at this distance and was a checkpoint to guage the progress I have made since I started multisport just over a year ago.