Black Diamond Olympic

At the last minute, I decided to enter this race and use it as a training day.

In the wee hours of the night, I heard loud rain. How could this happen? It was sunny and 77 on Saturday, only in Washington. The weather was going to be a repeat of the race from Cascades Edge.

I was getting ready to take my bike over to packet pick-up, until I noticed my rear tire was flat. I learned through several lessons to change the tube and not try to mess around with it. After a few minutes of messing around in the dark and dropping stuff, I got the tire re-inflated. This put me behind enough that I ended up as the second bike on the rack. I went back to the car and relaxed. I grabbed the rest of my race gear and set up my transition area.

It rained on and off all morning. I headed out for a short run to warm-up. Then took the LYNSKEY to get my glutes warmed up. With 15 minutes left till my wave started, I donned my XTERRA VENDETTA. Actually, it took me a good 10 minutes to get it on because of the pouring rain.

SWIM - 22:10
I started in the center. 3-2-1 the gun sounded. It was chaos. There were a lot of people in the mix. After the first buoy it started to thin out. I swam next to a guy stroke for stroke through the next 2 buoys. I made a move as we were rounding for the second loop. I think he went wide and never caught back up to me.

BIKE - 1:03.10
I ran into T-1, ripped off the XTERRA,  grabbed the LYNSKEY, and headed out. The roads were much worse than June. I played it conservative on the turns. The only reason I had the fastest bike split was because the winner went down.

RUN - 39:42
I racked the LYNSKEY, slid my feet into my NEWTONS, and stormed out of T-2. I passed a guy nearing the transition area. It was short lived. He passed me back within the first mile on the run. I tried to keep my pacing consistent. As I neared the turn around, I started to count 6 racers in front of me and once I came around I saw 4 guys chasing. I managed to pass the super swimmer at the start of the trail run. I heard a guy behind me in the distance with half a mile to go yelling, "On your left!!!" I knew he was moving like a cheetah and I was the antelope. I kept it together and held him off. He ran 4 minutes faster than me for the fastest run of the day.

I ended up 4th overall and 1st in my division. I biked faster and ran a little slower than June. As for recovery, I swam Monday morning and felt great. I wasn't sore.