Wow.... this was probably one of my worst swims EVER! I suppose it didn't help that I've probably only swum about 4 times in the past month or so... First problem was there was no countdown to our wave start. Just heard the horn blow and we're off! I'm not sure what happened, but in the first few hundred yards, I had a bit of panic & a dizzy/seasick feeling that made me have to stop and breast stroke for a bit to regain my composure. I think there may have been a little bit of chop or wake or something.... Swam past a lot of people in the waves ahead of us, even though I was having a sucky swim! Rounded the bouys pretty well, but rounding the bouys was definitely crowded! Got swum over by a guy in the wave behind me rounding one bouy. Second stop to breast stroke and regain my breath.... The way back cleared out a bit, but sighting was difficult since we were swimming into the sun and there were not many bouys to site off of. I think I was off course to the right for a good bit of the way back. Got my first kick in the face in this stretch.... third breast stroke break.... Finally rounded the final bouy and made my way to the ramp to exit. All in all not a stellar swim for me.

Keep up my swim training before my next race?? Yeah - that would probably help!

Long transition area. I think I made my way through pretty quickly considering the size of it, and the fact that my bike was WAY off to the side.

Nothing really. My transitions could always probably be a little quicker, but I was okay with this one.

As always, I really enjoyed the bike. Crowding was a problem at points, but not as bad as I feared it might have been. Saw some interesting things on the bike course - 1) a racer on a mountain bike with NO HELMET -- why didn't pull his @ss off the course I don't know! 2) Some guy riding the opposite direction with a kid's bike trailer behind his bike -- WTF??? How the heck did HE get out there???

Pretty happy with my performance on the bike considering my bike training has also been pretty minimal in recent weeks.

T2 was fine. Forgot to loosen my speed laces before the race, though, so that cost me a few seconds.... there goes my podium spot!!

Make sure my shoes are ready to go!

Pretty happy with the run. I probably could have gone a little harder, but I knew this was not going to be a spectacular race.

Push a little harder.

A little walking around, grabbed some food, made my way into transition to pack up. A while later, rode back back to hotel.


Lack of swim & bike training, and my general sucky running ability!


I enjoyed this race. It was kind of fun doing a "big race" like this, but as you would expect, logistics are a bit of a pain. You've just to expect that and go with it in an event like this. I thought the organizers did a great job of getting all of the swim waves off relatively on time (I was in wave 28, and I think we were maybe 3 minutes past our "scheduled" start time, which really isn't bad considering how many people they had to get started).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my race performance (to 25% in my AG, top 30% in my gender) considering my lack of training over the past month or so. I forgot to start my watch at my wave start, so I had no idea of what my overall race time was during the course of the race. Had I known I was within a minute of 3:00, I would have pushed a little harder on the bike or run. Then again, it was kind of nice "racing" without regard to my overall time.