My wife, Jen, on the beach with our homestay in the background.

PRE-RACE:
Woke up at 3:45am so I could get some breakfast in early since the race started at 6:30am. Had a couple of slices of toast with PB and a powerbar. Got showered up and got all of my gear together and headed to the race site which was 4 miles away. Got to the race site at 5am and got body marked and set up my transition. After that I went out for a 15 minute run and crossed paths with Cunningham and Carfrie. Cunningham looked like he finishes off his warmup at race pace and Carfrie was doing strides. I shadowed Cunningham during his warmup and then went for a stretch session. I felt pretty loose while stretching but was still concerned because of the race I had last week and the problems I've had with my lower back. After stretching I was back in transition and saw Lovato lubing up for what seemed to be way too long. Jen noticed it too and it's too bad she didn't get a picture of it.

I then headed over to jump in for the swim to the island for my warmup swim. On the way over I saw Morgan on his boat since he was working the swim. That was pretty random. I felt loose in the water and thought I was going to have a good swim.

ACTUAL TIMES:
DNF 

SWIM:
While we were waiting for the gun to go off I talked with Mac Brown since he's buds with Pittroff. After that I lined up on the outside next to Faris and when the gun went off I jumped on his feet. Unfortunately, the course makes a real sudden left turn and I went a bit too far and lost most of the group. I don't think I can swim with them anyway but I ended up in a pack of four and felt like I could have swum in a slightly faster pack. The water was choppy like yesterday and I basically just sat in for the whole swim. With a little ways to go the lead women caught our pack (they were two minutes down) and I saw Nina Kraft was in the pack. At that point I knew we weren't swimming very fast and when I got out of the water in 29+ mins it was confirmed. I came out of the water with Fritzsche, Martin, and Cigana for the men and Dibbens, Kraft and Wee for the women.

BIKE:
Once on the bike I felt pretty good. My heart rate was a bit elevated at first but came down below 170 bpm after no time. I settled in for a bit riding near the top women and one of the guys and then started to pick up the pace and started to make up some ground on some guys in front of me. By the time I made it back into town I was just out of reach of a small group of 3 guys and I held this position until I felt like my rear tire was contacting the ground and sure enough it was. I had a slow leak in my rear tire that had to be changed just before heading up "The Beast" at mile 20. It took me quite some time to change the tire because it was glued on there really thick. I got my spare on in 15 minutes and by that time it seemed like everybody in the race passed me. I climbed the beast and it actually was a pretty good climb....very similar to Snake Mountain but not as long....only .7 miles. I felt like I had to ride very cautiously with my spare on because there wasn't much glue on it so I lost a lot more ground on the decents. I tried to enjoy the amazing views that the course had to offer and then with 8 miles to go my front tire was touching the ground.....flat #2. I walked for about 30 minutes before a sag wagon came and they were all out of tubulars so I had them pump the tire to see if it would hold for the next 8 miles. I got another mile down the road and it was flat again. I waited another 30+ mins for the next sag wagon and got a ride back to transition where Jen was very worried about me. My day was over. 

RUN:
No run today...

SUMMARY:
Even though the race didn't go as planned....it was a great vacation and we got to stay with a fun family on an amazing property.