Winning one in the swim

A major first for me! When you come from nearly drowning in the swim for many of my beginner years of multisport to actually coming from behind to win a race, any race, in the water, it's encouraging. We did the Sunrise Biathlon on Sat morning. Felt it would be a nice low key affair, as have been the other 2 biathlons I've done ever. And, since I've been training about 18 hours a week for half ironman in 4 weeks with no real rest days, I wanted a low key event. Showed up and there are a lot of people and timing chips. Wow, not low key at all. Took it all in stride and used it more as a nice hard workout than a real race. We swam every day last week too so the old arms/shoulders were pretty tired. No excuses, just here for fun anyway. And it was fun. Two mile beach run (out and back), 1/2 mile ocean swim (two loops) then one mile run (out and back). The first run I was a little slow to get going, no speed at all! Passed a few gals on the return trip and went into the swim in third, but the first girl was flying on the run! Arms super heavy and breathing hard around the first loop of the swim and wanted to settle into solid tempo on second loop. Stood up to exit the water from the first loop and there was the first girl right in front of me so I needed to hammer the second loop hard to get a lead on the fast-running girls ahead of me. Out of the water, onto the second run. Didn't realize I was in the lead until the turn around. I DID realize the gals behind were charging hard to catch me. Luckily, it was only a mile and I was able to hold them off for the win. The Dane finished up second in his AG. We took our bikes with us and did a 2 hour ride to/in/out Fort Desoto then it was Corona time! Rode super hilly 66-miler yesterday, reportedly 3000ft of climbing on this ride and I felt each foot! Did 45 min brick off that which felt better than the ride! One more week of hard workouts then easing into taper for IM Rhode Island 70.3. Can't wait. Think I'm ready.
Kia Kaha