I came out of the swim really fast, it felt great for me... Having been on the Texas Gold Swim Team, the swim was a piece of cake, and I could have cut a LOT off of my time had I been able to navigate better... there were many times when I looked up and was WAY off course and would have to correct and pass a bunch of people that I had already passed before...

I'm going to practice swimming in lakes in order to get much better at navigating instead of always just practicing in a pool

I don't know my exact time, but it was probably around 5 minutes, could have been a less... Everything went pretty well, I wasn't wearing a singlet, so I had to throw on a bike jersey (which wasn't easy while I was wet)... For my next race I'm planning on having a tri-suit so I dont have to change at all...

Get a tri-suit

I dont know my ranks because nothing has been posted and I dont feel like tabulating it all my self... I felt good on the bike, although I got passed by a lot of people that were WAY better at this than me... Also at about mile 30 I hit a pot-hole and my seat popped and pointed as high up as it could... I rode like that for about 10 miles for pride sake (the friend of mine I came to the race with had caught up shortly after my seat freaked out and I didnt want to pull over and let him pass me) But I finally pulled over and got out my tools (luckily I brought them) and fixed it... Going out to the turn around was alright, but coming back I felt great, up until my seat broke I was maintaining about 22-25mph and then after I fixed it I got back up to around 21 and held it to the finish...

Fix my bike BEFORE it breaks... in other words... check over my equipment before the race and make sure every thing is 5x5

I don't have clipless pedals, so all I had to do was jump off the bike, pull of my helmet, put on my cap and go... next time I'll have a fuel belt to put on...

get clipless pedals and work on getting off and leaving the shoes clipped in...

Running is definitely my weakest part of the 3 concentrations... I have always had a hard time setting a pace (I always set it WAY too slow) The first couple miles was hard with my wobbly post-bike legs, but then I felt pretty good for the rest of the run... Aid stations were few and far between and I didnt have a fuel belt, so my fueling and drinking for the run was way off what it should have been... Dodging jellyfish was also kind of a fun game (I've never seen that many jellyfish on a beach) The beach actually wasn't that bad, there was a nice breeze and the sand was pretty hard-packed, I just ran too slow...

Set a faster pace and get a fuel belt...

Walked around a little bit then stretched, then laid down on a towel on the beach and went to sleep listening to the ocean... (after drinking some gatorade and eating a bunch of oranges and such)


the run definitely limited me... I know what I'm going to be working on for my next half iron...


This was my 2nd tri ever (first was a long time ago while I was a freshman in high school) and I think I did really well... I trained for it a LOT (I'm on the Texas A&M Cycling Team and I used to swim competitively) although I really need to work on my running a lot more... Overall I think I did pretty well, but I could have pushed myself harder and gone a lot faster, especially on the run, but you live and learn...