No use in crying over spilt milk. I'm truly happy for my fellow Baydogs who all had great races. Me? I was 14 minutes slower than last year. My goal was 2 hrs 23 minutes which I believe to be aggressive but achievable. I finished with 2 hrs 44 minutes.
I'm still scratching my head wondering how I sited the wrong rooftop or why I assumed i was going straight following a group of 20 or so swimmers. As we rounded the bend and were heading to the shoreline, I was siting frequently to maintain a nice tight line. At one point one of the volunteers in a kayak shouted at me," you off course, get back with the group". I looked up and saw to my immediate left a group swimming maybe 20 meters away. I thanked him for letting me know. Not a huge deal, I'll just adjust and get back on the direct line. Then, after what seem like about 4 to 5 minutes and still siting the rooftop and quite apparent a group of swimmers directly in front of me, an aluminum boat with outboard motor came up to our right and began shouting at the top of his lungs, "GUYS! you are way off course". He is frantically waving his arms motioning us to get back in the right friggin lake. Looking back it's kind of funny. How it happened still is a mystery. I look up and quickly can see the island is at the 11 o'clock position when the island should be more like at the 2 o'clock position from my vantage point in the water. There was a group of us essentially about to go down the wrong side of the island. Right away, I knew my day was over and kiss good bye my goal time as i was easily 250 meters off course and probably more. When you're not exactly the strongest swimmer to begin with these mistakes can destroy you. Frustrated, mad, upset with myself, i took an extra minute at T1. The first 5km of the bike was a sunday drive. My mind was still locked in "man, did you mess up or what mode". Then at 6km, on the bike, i spoke to myself, told myself to suck it up, 'push on ; finish strong". suddenly I got my legs going and was turning out 38kph. I'm sure on the first out & back, John Dow and Kevin White and the rest of the Baydogs saw me so far behind were wondering WTF [what the fudge]?? End result from that point on I had a descent race. Thanks to Marcus on the run, as we ran together for the majority of the race pushing one another.
