Started in the second row of people and realized the two people in front of me were swimming too slow so I picked a line between them, burried my head and swam hard for the small gap between them. Bumped the woman on the left then the guy on the right (didn't bump them hard) and the moved enough for me to get buy.

Swam hard the first 100 yards then settled into a more relaxed pace. By the time I reached the turn around I had tired out on freestyle and swithced to breast stroke and still kept a good pace.

Didn't swim smoothly as I was trying to hard to swim fast and think I ended up plowing through the water with shorter and choppy strokes instead of taking longer smooth strokes and cutting through the water.

Out of the water, once I cleared the sand and hit the bike path to the transition area I was wiped coming out of the water. Ran through the sand by walked the rest of the way to the Transition area.

Had a water bottle and towel just for washing sand off the feet and drying.

Bike was against the fence and my dad was there chatting as I got ready and then told me to get a move one. Wife was there to hand me chap stick for my eyebrows.

After thought: It was more mental than anything and I could have at least had a slow jog.



Be better prepared mentally to job from the swim to the T-area.

Goal on the bike was to take the hills fairly easy then hit the big gears and really work the downhills for speed and try to maintain that into the flats and carry as much speed as possible into the next hill.

Most hills required downshifting to 2nd or 3rd gear, but did manage to get over a few in 5th or 6th gear.

At this point of training, I wouldn't have done anything different.

A guy who was racked next to me, was standing near is bike, and was already done with the race. Told him, "YOU SUCK!!!" Of course I said it with a smile.

Speed laces might have help with time, otherwise I was pretty happy as it WAS my FIRST race.

Run was listed as 4 miles. Was told in T2 that is was 3 miles, then heard it was 3.5 miles, so didn't know who was full of shit so planned on a 4 mile run. Based on my run time and pace it came out to 3.1 miles.

Plan was to run 5 minutes/walk 1 minute till the legs loosened up then increase the running time and keep the 1 minute walk when necessary. My ASS, HAMSTRINGS and CALVES had different plans. After the turn it felt like I left my ASS and HAMSTRINGS on the course and as I came to the finish line my THIGHS fell off.

Ended up walking a lot more then I wanted to.

Again, probably mostly mental here: Focus on taking longer strides instead of trudging to try and loosen the legs.

Kiss the wife and child, hug the dad, get some water, gatorade, banana, bread.

Walk around to keep things moving, chat with others I met before the race.

Home to dad for corn on the cob and brats.....stretch of course.


Experience and mental toughness.


First Tri, so was happy overall. First goal was to have FUN!!!!

Time goal 1) 2:15:00 - beat that
Time goal 2) 2:05:00 - Had I known the run was 3.1 miles and not 4 I probably would have pushed harder, knowing that I had a chance to hit this one.
B-HAG (Big Hairy Ass Goal) 2:00:00 - Knew after the swim that this one was already out of reach. At least I had a B-HAG in mind had I had I had a faster swim time and T1 time.

Happy to have done it and looking forward to the Lake Geneva SPRINT on Sept 10th.