My first full triathlon of the season, and it almost didn't look like I'd be well enough to do it. Too many long hard rides and runs and not enough tapering, and my juices were totally tapped out. To the point I thought I had caught a virus. I made arrangements with the race director to give me a raincheck for next year's race and I layed low on Thur and Friday. But Saturday, I didn't have the expected plummet into full-blown disease misery. Instead, I felt a bit better. I did a 2 mile run, which I've been doing a lot of, lately. It was OK. Late on Saturday, I did an 11 mile bike into the local mountains. That felt fine too - so, I was back in the game! I decided to sleep at Cabrillo Observatory, where I tend to sleep well, and it would save me an extra 7 miles and 15 minutes of sleep in getting to Ferrell's by 5:45am.

After a fitful night of sleeping at the observatory, I'm up at 5am, and at Ricks by 5:45am

Arriving at Uvas, weather looks soupy

Fog. Not good....

Er... we ran out of shirts. Get on the list if you still want one.

Mark up

My transitions needed help. This race, I decided to dress complete for the bike and run underneath the wetsuit. No more struggling with shirts after the swim.

Dan and his Cervelo, sucking down some Gu before the swim.

The swim was an adventure. A water start, which was good. Water temp was 69F and the air was colder, which made for fog rising off the water surface. Frankly, you couldn't see much of anything. We were told to swim towards the dam and look for the second of two orange bouys. I started on the extreme right, almost on the opposite shore. Ferrell took the extreme left. We didn't see each other after leaving the transition area. After the gun went off, I swam and hugged the right shore, scraping my knuckles on rocks at a couple of points. I could see no dam in the fog ahead, and people seemed to be swimming in a widening random fan. Someone on my left kept bumping me and preventing me from getting left where I hoped to see a bouy or two. We kept pace and eventually I had to just swim over them to get left. I swam towards the left but didn't see any bouy. Eventually, I thought I could see the dam ahead in the mist and about that time I almost ran into oncoming swimmers! Whoa - there it was, off to the right of me in the distance, so I had to make a sharp right to get to it. Turns out Ferrell had a similar experience. I was told that there was a second bouy we had to go around, so I didn't make a sharp turn but swung outward, looking for the other bouy.... but it was pretty soon I realized I saw NO other swimmers anywhere within the foggy range of view. I swam to the left and eventually saw the "island", as they called it (peninsula, really), and got close enough to swim parallel to it, as I remembered that there would be a final bouy and then a sharp left turn to get to the exit. Mission accomplished! I had NO idea whether I was way behind, or way ahead, or what. I hardly saw any swimmers after the first 300 yards or so. So it was a surprise to climb out of the water and see another climbing out right next to me - Ferrell! He got a step on me getting up the ramp. I shouted out to get his attention - "Curse you, Ferrell!" He baited me about the timing mat being the decider, and I out sprinted him! By a fraction of a second. Payback from the last 3 races where he beat me out of the water to the mat by a second or two.

Here's the race results . My run was pretty ugly...

I was happy about my transitions. Much faster than past races.