"Welcome to the Taper!"

That was the email message from my coach. It's taper time.
My last hard workout was yesterday. I did an Olympic distance race and PR'd my previous best oly by :2:33. I'm pretty happy with that cuz the course was a tough one.
Total racers at the event (sprint and Olympic) was 1,200. Starting the oly race were 260 racers. I started in the 6th wave. The 6th wave was the last wave of the oly distance so you can imagine the washing machine of feet, knees, and elbows that were ahead of me. I'm an above average strong swimmer and I usually blast out of the start to avoid the initial ciaos. I had a great start with a few dolphin dives and I was in clear water with no one in my wave to hamper my progress. I caught wave 5 in about 3 minutes. That's when things got tough. I had to weave and plow my way through about 30 bodies (that's 60 feet, 60 knees, and 60 elbows) before the first turn buoy. Right after the turn, I got kicked in the right eye, "OUCH, EFF THAT HURTS!", and my goggle got suctioned so hard into my eye socket that I had to quickly roll onto my back and release the suction before it pulled my eyeball out (mild black eye today). That solved, I found my way through wave 4 to the second turn buoy and by that time the field had thinned out enough that I was able to settle into a smooth pace and make up some time.
T1 was fine except for the crowd in the exit chute and at the mounting line. Evidently it was a bit too much for the chip timing to handle so my bike split wasn't recorded. The bike was hilly, rolling hills, and windy. No worries, I felt good and kept my average pace over 20 mph according to my bike computer.
T2 was also fine and the first 4 miles of my run were good. Then my glutes and hips got real tight and I struggled to keep it smooth and finish in good form. I think I better get my bike fit checked to see if I'm stressing my glutes too much on the bike. After lunch and a short nap, I went for a 90 min ride to flush out my legs and loosen up my butt-ox.
So, the upshot is I PR'D! in spite of the obstacle course of swimmers and a tight butt (pun intended). I'm a little miffed that my bike split didn't get recorded so I'll have to contact the timing folks to see if anything can be done after the fact.
Today is a DAY OFF of training so I plan on icing a few sore body parts and cleaning up the bike for tomorrow's ride.