I am a cotton headed ninny muggins.

I got up at 4:00 and had a hearty b'fast of waffles and eggs - that my faithful wife got up to fix me! I arrived at the Y at 5:30 to get a good spot in the transition zone and then hung out at Steve & Michelle's, who live across the street. Participants had to have our stuff set up by 6:30 but it gets pretty crowded in that area and the premium spots are near the inside ends of the rows.

The run started about 30 minutes late, around 8:15 or so. The men left in the first group, the ladies a few minutes later, and we did a 2-mile loop. I'm not very good at estimating, but I'm guessing about 100 men, maybe a few more. By the time we got back to the transition area the field had spread out considerably. Some of these guys are real athletes, very fast at each of the events, and some look like they'd gotten up off the couch on Thanksgiving morning to commit suicide by exercise.

Times won't be posted on their web site for a few days so I don't know my splits. Steve served as my photographer and Josh had an unofficial watch on me. He says I did about 8:15 miles, which I'm satisfied with. My goal was 8:30's.

It was probably in the mid-50's when the race started, which is why I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt and cotton gloves.
Once back from the run and into the transition zone the goal is to quickly get the running shoes off and bike shoes and helmet on. We have to walk our bikes out of the transition zone before getting on them. Then it's three laps of a 4-mile loop. By the third loop most of the competitors, men and women, are somewhere on that bike course, which was only one traffic lane wide. So it got a little tricky, especially at the corners. But it was a smaller field than last year and people seemed generally more aware of what was going on around them.
Josh said I was at 55 minutes when I re-entered the transition zone and my bike computer said I had done it at almost exactly the same speed as last year - 19 mph avg.
After the third circuit around the bike course it's back into the transition zone to put the bike back on the rack, take off the gloves, shirt, shoes and socks, put on the goggles and hustle over to the pool. The Y has an Olympic-size pool (50m) long, so doing 400m means swimming each of the 8 lanes, up one and back the next.
The pool was crowded, too, so at times there was some jostling and bumping as faster swimmers passed slower swimmers. But again, nothing untoward.
It took me about 100m or so to settle in and get into a rhythm. And I was fatigued from the run and the ride. But last year I could only do a side stroke; you can't really say I was a swimmer. So while I had to pause for a few seconds at the end of each lap I felt much better about the way things went.
My right calf cramped up pretty significantly at about 250m and got worse as I continued. So I did about 50m without kicking and it loosened up enough to continue.
The finish line was alongside the pool, just back from the corner where we exited.
I was, and still am exhausted. It will take a few days for my calf to heal. But as I look back on the race I'm satisfied with my performance. Last year it had rained for three days and they had to shorten the run course because part of it had turned to mud. So I won't be able to compare this year's run time to last year's. But according to Josh's ballpark timing I did it a little faster than my expected pace of 8:30 miles. We'll see in a few days when they post the split times on their web site.
If I'm correct, the bike time should be very close to the same. My transition was better this year, so that may cut some time off last year's.
But the big improvement came in the pool. Last year was a disaster; I literally feared I might need help during the "swim" and had to fight off panic as I came too close to collapse. Horrible experience. I'm not a strong swimmer now, not by any measure. But I swam 400m at an acceptable pace and I know I can improve on that as I continue to work on my swimming.

So I consider today's event a personal success. I'm interested to see how I did in my age division. They give awards 5 deep in each division. Last year I entered the pool in 5th place and got out of the pool in 9th (dead last). My total time will be longer this year because we did the full two miles on the run, but I cut a lot of time off my swim. Whether or not I finish in the top 5 doesn't matter to me, but I'd like to see that I came out of the pool at or near the same position as I entered it.

Note: last year there were only 3 guys in the next age division up, and that's the division I'll be in next year. Heh-heh.

As I walked back to my van I prayed a LOT. I thanked God for giving me the health to do something like this, and giving me a much better experience than last year. I understand that it is HIS goodness that enables me to have an experience like today's. This really was evidence of God's grace in my life. And part of that grace was the encouragement I got from friends and family. Thanks, guys.