I promised a bargain based blog and today I deliver! Two races for the price of one. First Chelanman in Lake Chelan, WA. The races started with initial excitement that I did not prepare for as I was at the transition zone trying to get everything ready that morning, my lovely girlfriend, Leslie, said, “Ok, got your race number? Shit. Nope. Got your timing chip? double Shit.” Luckily my friends who we were staying with rushed them down to me and in the nick of time I was off on the swim. I fought for position in the first 200 meters then settled into a comfortable stroke. Being used to swimming slowly I caught a pack and drafted for over half of the distance, while in hindsight I should have went around and surged for the next group.Swim stats I came out of the water in 27 minutes and went to work making up ground on the bike. It is a fast bike course, being fairly flat and I put the power down.Bike Stats I came in under an hour and then proceeded to run the first 3.1 to the turnaround point. At the turnaround I saw that the person behind me was making ground but I thought I could hold him off perhaps but I could still feel him gaining with every step, I just wanted to see the finish line. He caught me at mile 5 with 1.2 to go, like Lake Padden we ran the last mile together and I kicked early just to see what he had left. He had a lot more than me in the tank, he flew past me on the last hill and I came in to the finish with 10 seconds put on me in the last 300 meters.Run Stats I was disappointed a little but very happy overall as I had set a personal record by almost 5 minutes from the last year. In a later wave the same guy who has won it for the last couple years, Tony, took first by 30 seconds, so I was still on the podium with a 3rd place finish overall and 40 seconds out of first. I knew I could do better but I was very pleased with my progress.