Since my initial race at Naperville, I have constantly tried to figure out the best way to handle the swim. If I go in too early (clean water ahead), then I get swum over by the Elites. If I go in at the end (clear water behind), I end up having people climb over us as we pass slower swimmers and catch people at the last turn or two. Maybe someday I can crack the code on this…
After arriving and finding a very “quiet” and “subdued” Chris (that man needs a megaphone for 2025… :P), we headed in to set up the transition. Because of how things ended up with setup, we were racked in with the kids section (but still in the same general area as usual).
As mentioned at the beginning, we had the “people climbing over us” issue in the last couple of turns. Even still, it felt like a solid swim until that point.
After coming out of the water, we then made the long trek to where the bike was racked. Things were going well in T1 until I couldn’t find my second bike glove. After a mildly frantic search as the clock ran, I found it in the last place I expected. I didn’t notice it was still in my helmet when I put it on…
After that was sorted out, we went out and had a fairly solid bike. We did have a minor crash on the first U-turn, which led to us dismounting and manually turning the bike around during the second loop.
After a normal T2, we headed out on the run with a plan for the hills (especially the one up into the bridge). While it became a run/walk at times because of both the hills and heat, the run was OK.
Even though there were a few hiccups, the finish time was where it should have been. Subtracting the time lost in T1 looking for the glove and for the crash would put me at about where 2023’s race was.
Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped to make this a great race! Thank you to Joe, Dave, Bill, and everyone at 10X for all their help. And thank you to Scott for all his help and guiding.
