This turned out to be a great swim for me.... 8th OVERALL and 1st woman out of the water! Wow, I didn't even feel like I was working all that hard... There were 2 waves, men went first and women went 3 minutes later. We started on the shore behind the timing mat, gun went off and we had to maneuver down to the water watching out for tons of rocks along the way. I was glad I wore my Crocs down there! Left my Crocs right next to the swim entrance, waded in with the rest of the girls. They had a couple of small pieces of carpet that were on the shore, but not running into the water. The bottom was muddy and then we could feel the hydrilla (ie nasty lake weed). Finally got deep enough to dive in. I kept to the right and made a wide left turn into open water at the buoy turn. There were only 2 buoys for the whole swim! One at the beginning and one 400 meters away and you couldn't see it right away because it was around a bend. I just stayed to the right side of the swimmers and hoped they were swimming straight! Had nice open water around the buoy, and started back. I noticed then I was passing men, what I didn't know was that I had been passing them all along! Finally I was getting close to the buoy by the swim exit and I saw my friend Anne just ahead of me... I wanted to beat her out of the water so I sped up a bit to catch her when all of a sudden we were in hydrilla again. I stopped and looked around, we were in the middle of a big patch of it, UGH! Anne continued through it, I took the quickest route OUT of it and headed for shore. Got out, put on my Crocs and started the 100 meter or so run to transition. Kati let me know I was the first woman out of the water, but I had no idea I had beat most of the men too!! VERY happy with this swim!!

Pace was 1:49/100 YARDS, included some distance from the water to and from the timing mat.

Watch out for the weeds!!!! That probably added at least 10 seconds to my time.

Anne was right behind me in transition, but she beat me out onto the bike. The bike racks were really close together, it was hard to maneuver.

1st AG
5th/30 females
18th overall

Maybe put my "stuff" to the outside of the rack so I would have had more room to bend over and get my shoes on.

Got off well, Anne was just ahead of me and I tried to keep her in sight, but she eventually got too far ahead to see. Left the park, hit some small hills, and legs were feeling a bit fatigued. I was pretty much all alone for quite awhile. Turned onto 2410 and had a long incline. Made it pretty well to Levy's Crossing and then hauled ass since I had ridden the route earlier in the week and knew I didn't have to slow down on this road at all. At about 7.5 miles I started passing some men, and then pretty much stayed with a couple of guys all the way back. One small looking hill on Warrior's Path was really hard. Tried to get out of the saddle, but didn't have much luck with that. Once I got over the hill, I was pretty speedy until I got about midway on the road back into the park. Had a few women pass me here. Tried to spin easily, but turned out to be too little too late. There was some really rough chip seal on this route. Drank my whole aero bottle of water and didn't have enough to wash down the Gu I ate about 4 miles out...

5th/30 females

Ride more! I LOVE my speed, but want to be faster with less effort so that my run isn't so sucky. Need more hill work too!

The photographers were blocking the path I would have taken to rerack my bike, so had to squeeze in from another direction. I have a hard time getting my running shoes on while standing up... I hate to resort to a bucket or milk crate, BUT...?! On one shoe, the heel of the shoe bunched up and it took me a bit to get it sitting right, so slower than normal T2.

1st AG
31st OA
9th/30 females

Practice transtions! I haven't specifically practiced them at all this season, need to so that I can pick up some free speed!

I started off pretty well, wasn't feeling too bad! We ran out the swim exit, but then I hit soft, squishy dry grass that wasn't packed down and it was really hard to run on. In fact it was exhausting since I do all my running on pavement. Finally I had to take a walk break, my breathing was hard, HR was sky high, just had to get it all in control. I really wanted some water, but the first water stop was about a mile and a quarter in. I really wish there had been a water stop right at the beginning! Walked/ran quite a bit until about the last mile, then I ran it in. Hit the soft grass again about a half mile from the finish, I was dragging! Anne came and met me to try and get me to pick up the pace, but it wasn't happening. Finally hit some pavement before the slightly uphill finish.

17th/30 female

More bricks, more biking so that I can run better off the bike and add more run volume.

None, went over to the pavilion, got some water and watermelon and sat down with Anne and Kati and Kane and waited for Tammy and Stacy to come in. We waited a long time for the awards to start, but there was a nice breeze and we were in the shade under the pavilion so it was nice.


The stupid run, AGAIN. For the 3rd time this year I was 1st AG all the way across... swim, T1, Bike, T2... then a big ol' fat 2nd for the run. I was pissed at myself after the results were posted because the 1st place gal was 55 seconds ahead of me, and I know I walked at least that much. If I had SUCKED IT UP and ran, no matter how slowly, I probably could have held onto my 1st place.


Good race! This was the very first one. I didn't like the run, but now that I know how it is, I can go out there and practice running on grass and dirt trails. I would have preferred for us to wade into the water and THEN have the gun go off, probably would have been a bit more manageable. There also should have been at least 2 more buoys so that we would have something to guide ourselves... there were swimmers swimming in both directions, good possibility of head crashing out there! Good bike course, just enough hills to challenge me, but not enough to totally trash the legs! Good race with good friends... I will definitely do it again.