Some notes:

My swimming seems to be about "on track" for the year. It's interesting to note that I pretty much matched my swim time for 2002, and that year saw me bring home my fastest Wildflower swim split (and actually my PR for a 1.5km swim). That's a good sign.

My bike split was the fastest ever at this race. Since my bike leg was what hurt me so much last year at Wildflower, I'm feeling pretty good about that. The fact that the race was held under fairly breezy conditions on a "technical" course with tired legs (I did NOT "taper" for this race) makes me feel even better. So far so good.

The run HURT. Physically. A day later and my shins are still achey. I'm popping painkillers like Max Payne. I'm caught in a trap that I have always been lucky enough to avoid until now. I'm injured and there is no time to recover from it. If I rest for the next two weeks, it will be race day and I wont be ready. If I keep training, I run the risk of further injury and poor performance during the race. The best case is to train lightly, maintain my current injured state and run it out on race day. I'd really like to see sub-9 miles at Wildflower and I believe I'm capable of doing it. In all honesty, I think I could turn out pretty darn close to 8-minute miles if I was well rested and in good running shape.

Two weeks to go -- only ONE training week left!

UPDATE: Now that I can look at the official times, the situation seems much more grim than I expected. Slower in the swim (by a LOT). Slower in the run (by a LOT). And only slightly faster on the bike. It looks like Wildflower is going to suck for me this year.