Pre-race:
I was looking for a fun race in June and saw this one – Escape the Cape – start a mile off Cape May shore, jump 10 feet off a ferry and go! Sounded like a good way to spend the weekend… It looked logistically insane – inaugural year, sprint, aquabike and international distances all leaving on the ferry at the same time, offsite parking with shuttles, mad crazy security because of the Boston bombing, bikes racked the night before… I called the race director and he seemed to have his shit together, so I signed up.
A few days before the race, I find out that the race is not an International Olympic distance after all; the swim is a bit long (1 mile instead of 1.5k), the bike is short (20 miles instead of 40k) and the run is short (5 miles instead of 10k). This is bad news for old Kona who's strength is the bike and run. Then I look up who else in my age group is racing – one name jumps out at me – Bob Pugh – dude is a fish and finished 11th AG at nationals last year. Last time I did Philly Tri in 2008, I finished 5 minutes behind him. It's good to have a little competition.
We leave the house at 6:15am Saturday for a Sunday race, get there around 8:30am, I do a practice swim and it looks like it will be wicked fast.
I pick up my dri-release shirt at registration and remember I ordered it in Sena's size - hey, she deserves some swag too; cool shirt – looks good on her.
We get through registration and a guy in the parking lot tells me he likes my Eagleman shirt – we start talking and he turns out to be the guy that bought the Blackwater triathlon, then got the Kona slots for the race and turned it into 'Eagleman' – fascinating stories from this guy.
We get to the hotel and head to the beach – I crash for an hour on the beach and when we wake up to go I can hardly walk – I'm thinking my Plantar Fasciitis is acting up – maybe I tore it again on the run at the beach? Maybe something I stepped on in the water? Damn! I hobble back to the hotel room and take some Ibuprofen and things start to settle down.
We head back to rack the bike, grab a beer and go to pre-race meeting. On my way to mount my bike, I decide to do a little spin on the first bit of the course – no helmet, not bike shoes, drinking and riding – don't to this at home kids – dumb idea, not my first, not my last.
As I am looking for my spot on the rack, a young lady looks at me, looks at my bike and says 'first timer, eh?' - took me a second and she says 'just kidding!'… ha, yeah, my bike is pretty bad ass looking.
Race Day
When our shuttle bus arrives at the race site on Sunday morning, we all have to line our bags up for dogs to check – felt like a war zone border control checkpoint. Then we go to a table to have the bags metal detected and searched – they then put an orange 'security inspected' sticker on each bag. After I am pretty well set up in transition, I head over to the lines at the port-o-johns and start talking to the guy in line next to me – turns out it is Bob Pugh – what are the odds?
Next up: 30 minute wait to get on the ferry. Once on the ferry, we do the national anthem, wave to our loved ones on shore and head out to sea.
I start talking to a guy that sees my THR kit and tells me how cool the THR folks were to him at Devilman – then a Tri Dawgs guy jumps into the conversation with his girl friend and starts talking up their club – too funny.
The boat stops and the first sprint group starts to go off – 5 at a time. We watch them get swept south by the tide as they try to swim straight toward shore. The ferry is situated to the north of the swim finish and the theory is if they swim straight at shore, they will hit the shore at the right spot.
Unfortunately the ferry keeps losing its position and floating south, resulting in some swimmers getting close to the jetty with rip tides – not a good place. Some of them have to swim against the tide to get to the finish – pretty ugly. So they stop the race for a while, reposition the ferry and start again, and again, and again.
This creates an hour delay in for the start of the international race – I go into the cabin and literally take a little nap while we wait.
The international start becomes a bit manic – like people trying to get the last life boats on the titanic. No more wave start – everyman/woman for themselves. Everyone knows we are about to lose the current from the tide and the longer you wait, the more likely it is that you'll have to wait for the ferry to reposition. Kona, Leo and Bob somehow get off within the first 20 waves going out. I saw Leo jump just before me, but never saw Bob.
Timing chips are on the wrist and the idea is to put your timing chip against the mat just before it's your turn to jump. So we put our wrists down and then they say – hold on, gotta wait for the next group to get out of the way – c'mon, really?! Ok, clear, I jump – don't even think about, just try to keep my goggles and cap on – the next thing I know, I'm 10 feet deep in the bay trying to get back to the surface. The lady next to me damn near takes my head off.
The chop and waves are bigger than I expected and coming straight at us. I revert to my worst swim habits trying to get air – splaying my legs, pushing down (instead of back) – anything to get my head out of the water to get some air. Occasionally I get in to a rhythm and make some good progress, but mostly I feel like I'm just getting through the swim. The tide changes and we aren't getting much help which means we get too close to the shore too early and we bottom out about ¼ mile off shore and I wear myself out trying to do dolphin dives along the shore to the finish.
Once on shore, I got nothin' – this should be where I make up some time, but I'm wasted and just jog the ¼ mile to transition passing a few people. I'm surprised to see Leo in T1 – he should have been on the bike already – maybe a bad day for everyone?
I try to put my helmet on… over my swim cap and goggles – 5-10 seconds wasted – otherwise, pretty smooth transition. Excellent mount and I am off with Leo just behind me. Turn, turn, turn – there must be 30+ turns on this course – impossible to get into a rhythm. 3 miles in and a young kid 'barely' passes me, I give him the benefit of the doubt and fall back, but his ass is just slowing Kona down, so I go around him and never see him again.
A couple minutes later a black dude with quads the size of my waist passes me on a turn – holy crap he is moving. We get to the first hill and I pass him back, then he passes me again. The guy is strong and good on turns – leaves me in the dust after about 5 miles. Later I learn he is trying to be the first African American pro triathlete – can that be true – Max something from KOP?
The dismount zone sneaks up on me and I barely get my feet out of the shoes in time – no flying dismount today - but the crowd applauds my efforts (or maybe I imagined that).
I have a decent bike leg, but in hindsight, I would have wanted to attack that course much harder – fast around the turns and hit it hard coming out of the turns.
I have some rookie shoe issues in T2 that cost me 15-20 seconds – orthotic inserts kept jamming up in the front of the shoe – took me 3 tries to figure out what was going on.
The first 200 yards of the run are fine, and then I hit the soft sand, then ½ mile of hard sand with a series of wide puddles that you have to run through – some 8 inches deep – looks like wet shoes for 5 miles – didn't see that coming.
Coming off the sand a volunteer hands me a cup of ice – I pour it down the front and back of my unitard. The wind is coming at us and it feels GOOD – I start to cool off and get my stride. I see Leo going out – he is working hard – I don't think he'll catch me. I pass the guy that passed me earlier and never see him again.
1 mile left and I start to get side cramps – breath deep and easy – stay in control. A young guy passes me. Cramps go away as we hit the sand for the last half mile. I get close to the bay and run parallel with kid that passed me. Just before we come off the sand I see Bob –took me all damn day to catch this guy - I wonder when he got off the boat?
At the awards ceremony, Steve Delmonte (the race director) gives a shout out to West Chester as a hot bed for triathlon.
Fun day – a lot of great pics – felt a little like an adventure race. It sure is nice to have a 1:47 OD race in the bag! 
I think the course must have been short - no way I was going this fast!
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