What a race!

I finished the Harvest Moon Long course in 5:58:34. Even though I was aiming at going sub 5:30:00. I gave it everything I had and was really happy with the end result. I had a little trouble at first swimming straight and kept winding up Left of the buoys. Eventually I figured out that the buoys were angled to the right of the shoreline and I kept swimming straight later realizing thats why I was going over the top of some people. I figured it out about 3/4 of the way and finished off strong and straight without the zig zag! The bike course was tougher than i expected and I personally had a good average 18.3 MPH and was really happy with how I felt. I could of consumed more calories but I was thinking this was like IM and there would be food on the course and all there was was Gatorade Edge and water. Thats my bad! I pretty much only had my bottle of perpetum and 2 gel packs. The first half of the run I did in 1:02:00 but I couldn't hold it and ran a 2:16:00. Didn't have any nutrition issues. Stomach felt good which was much improved from last years half where I heaved from mile 8 on. At the end I just wanted to go under 6 hrs. My friend Neal (which won his agegroup and went 4:30:00 something) went out on the trail and gave me that extra boost to "Dig deep" and finish strong! I picked up the pace as much as I could and made it! I placed 18 out of 42 in my agegroup not a bad way for me to end this race season (might try and squeeze one more sprint tri in) Going to train consistently through the winter and get faster!

My wife and kids go to all the races and it is an incredable experience finishing and seeing them after the race. See there smiles and hear my kids tell me I smell! They hung out at the race all day and I think i had more calories than they did. Some great moments for me! Racing my son Landon to the transition areaafter the race to get my stuff! Hes 2 and he won. Crossing the finish line with my son Daniel wearing my daughters jacket ( i was kind a confused at first) Seeing how happy my wife was when I shared my Post race BBQ with her..lol Exiting the swim I looked to my left and there was Neal right next to me I slapped him on the back and before I could get "nice swim out of my mouth" he was 10 yards up the beach! My friend DJ ran the relay and he did the swim portion and I new his crew were chasing me all day. I saw his runner at the turn around and I had what looked like about a mile or so lead and he caught me at mile 12 on the run. Man what a great sport! Will post pics later on....Ross