I felt really good about the swim. I didn't start too fast, which is one of the things I've been trying to work on.

After starting, I was able to catch the swimmer in front of me pretty easily. I passed her on the second length of the pool just by swimming around her when there was space. After that, I didn't have many swimmers near me for most of the swim. The first time I switched lanes, I did a flip turn and went under the lane line. I guess I didn't go deep enough because I scraped my back on the lane line and just did a bad flip turn there in general. After that, I did open turns when I had to go under lane lines, which slowed me down a bit. At first, I was trying to breathe after a set number of strokes, but I abandoned that pretty quickly. I just tried to breathe towards the outside of the lane. That really cut down on inahling water. In the last 50m, I could tell that another swimmer was getting close, although he never passed me. We ended up getting out of the pool at the same time.

This pool swim seemed a lot less chaotic than the one in my first tri. The officials actually spaced people apart by about 10 seconds, which really helped. The people around me also seemed to have estimated their swim times pretty well, so that kept things moving.

Flip turns when switching lanes. Probably need to practice that a bit more.

What a long, aweful run from the pool to the transition area!!! Most of this time is because I had to exit the pool, run on a dirt/gravel/woodchip covered path, through part of the parking lot before finally arriving to transition. The path was covered with rocks. Just aweful. A lot of people left sandals outside the pool building, but I'm not sure it would have been any faster to find my sandals, put them on, and then start running. Who knows. I didn't really hurt my feets, so I'm not too worried.

Once I finally got to my bike, I found the right rack and started putting on shoes. I already had my cap and goggles off, since there was plenty of time for that on the run there. I had a much easier time getting into my socks this time, thanks to a tip from Gwendal - put on the socks when laying out transition and then fold them halfway over the foot. This made it so much faster to get on my socks because there was less sock to pull over my wet foot. Also, bringing another towel helped because I was able to get a lot of the mud and rocks off of my feet.

The only other things I had to do were put on a helmet, sunglasses, and gloves. The gloves were a bit of a problem because the fingers were in the gloves from the last time I used them.

Maybe go sockless in the shoes? Make sure that gloves are the right way before the race starts.

Starting out on the bike was a little challenging. I had a hard time getting my left foot in the clipless pedals, which normally isn't a problem. The volunteers at the start of the course weren't so great at directing traffic, so that slowed things down a little. Once I got started, I felt pretty good. My legs were a little sore, so I started out a little more slowly. I got passed by a few people right away. After about a mile, I caught up to another rider, who I was able to pass pretty easily. The bike course was pretty empty. Most of the time I was riding by myself, which felt a little strange for a race.

The roads were somewhat hilly - they were rolling hills and nothing was too challenging compared to my normal rides. Roads were also had lots of twists and turns. I was never quite sure what to expect and I didn't feel really comfortable getting down in the aero bars. During the ride, I was trying to make sure I stayed hydrated. In my last tri, I hardly drank anything on the ride and that caused lots of problems later. My goal was to make sure I finished an entire waterbottle (50/50 Gatorade/Water mix). I actually accomplished this, so I was feeling a lot better than I normally do on my rides.

Towards the end of the course it really felt like it was going on forever and I was getting pretty tired. I think it was partially because there was no one around me. At one of the corners, a volunteer said that we had a mile left. That was a relief, so I tried to push it a little harder. Soon, it became pretty clear that it was more than a mile. Oh well. I could tell I was getting closer when I saw runners.

I'm REALLY happy with my time and my pace. I can't believe how fast I was! This is much faster than my bike pace is, even during training.

Riding the course ahead of time would have given me a better idea of where hills were, etc. I would also have liked a watch so I had an idea of how much longer the course was.

This transition was frustrating. I need to work on jumping off the bike instead of having to come to a complete stop. At least I didn't fall. As I was running to my rack, two racers who were already done stepped in front of me and were walking slowly around. Argh!! Some people are still racing here!! I yelled "Excuse me" and kept running. Unfortunately, that made me miscount the racks and I went into the wrong one. That took a little extra time. When I finally got there, I got out of the biking shoes and into the running ones, but I had to take the time to tie them. Frustrating. Finally grabbed my hat and race belt and went for the run.

I definitely need to get Yanks or speedlaces or something. It took too long. I'm not sure it's faster to use clipless pedals on a sprint. I wonder if I'd be better off using regular pedals and toe clips and bike in my running shoes. Something to consider for next time.

I felt pretty good on the run. I actually ran the whole time! That's a major achievement for me. I'm really excited about that.

The first five minutes were a little tough after getting off the bike, but I kept running anyway. I tried to slow down my breathing. The first uphill into the water stop was okay. Going into the turn around was mostly downhill and then there was another short uphill and another downhill. I was feeling really tired, but I was determined not to stop running or walk during the race. After the turn around, most of the way was uphill. My achilles tendon started to get sore. I wanted to run faster, but I was afraid to really push myself harder because I didn't want to hurt my ankles or achilles tendon.

During the run, it started to get pretty warm and I was feeling pretty thirsty after turning around. It certainly didn't help that the course went by lots of subdivisions with lakes and swimming pools. That just made me more thirsty and reminded me that I needed to go to the bathroom. Ouch. Finally got back to the water stop and the volunteer tried to give me a cup of water, but dropped it. Suck. Had to go back to get another one.

When I got towards the end of the course, I saw my husband standing by the side of the road, which was really nice. I pushed myself a little harder t the end and crossed the finish line and I felt great! I knew that my time was a big improvement over my first tri and I didn't feel quite so aweful.

I was really happy with my performace. I'm so excited that I dropped 17 minutes off of my last tri!!! My bike pace and my run pace were big improvements. I'm really proud of myself.

I would like to drop my run pace some more, but I think that will come by running more.

Walked around and stretched. Ate some a slice of pizza and an orange slice. Got a post-race massage, which was really really helpful.


I'm not sure that I could have gone much faster at this point. If I continue to train and work on everything, I'm sure that I will become faster. Really, the only things holding me back were my achilles tendons getting sore and not doing flip turns during swimming.


I enjoyed the bike course itself. It was nice. The run course was not great. It was pretty crowded.

Overall, I don't think there were enough volunteers for the race. The race director was desperately trying to find more volunteers, but I think they were still short. There were only two at the water stop, which means that it was hard to get water going through. It seemed pretty disorganized. A lot of people seemed confused, even during packet pickup, which is always a little disconcerting.

I'd probably do the race again, but that's largely because it's very close to my house and I know that the race director usually puts on a good race.