The day started off on a sour note when race directors allowed swimmers to swim whenever they wanted rather than at their designated seed time. This threw everything off for those who were expecting to start at a certain time; I ended up starting about 30 min. late due to those who cut the line. However, once in the pool, the swim went well with no real hang ups. I passed two people and no one passed me.

Put on cycle shoes, sunglasses, and helmet; grabbed Roo and ran to mount line.

When I got to the mount line I could not clip in! I had shoes that I don't normally wear, and although I did test them out earlier in the week, they seemed disagreeable today. Shortly after I started, I heard a hissing noise. Oh no, a tire! The road was too bumping to tell for sure, so I elected to pull over and check rather than risk my race wheels. They were fine! What the heck? I took back off and heard the hissing again, but after a few minutes it stopped (seems something was in my wheel making that noise and blew out). I was making good progress until my chain dropped off on an uphill locking up my crank! The chain fell off and got stuck between the cassette and the back fork. I had to stop, loosen the skewer, put the chain back on, tighten the skewer, then get going back up the hill. (sigh) I could not remember for sure if the course was 14 or 16 miles ( I was thinking 14). Then I saw the sign for 13 miles and next thing I knew I was back at the bike in. It caught me off guard because I did not expect it so soon and I passed the bike dismount! Volunteer support was not very helpful at the bike out and bike in, so it was a bit confusing both ways. Had to go up and turn around and finally made it back in. Whew...

Learn to mount shoes on bike. Put a spacer in my cassette so the chain won't fall off. Pay attention to the course.

I had a hard time getting my running shoes on with no socks; feet seemed sticky. I also fumbled with switching my Garmin from bike to run.

Learn to use the multisport function on my Garmin so I can switch with one push of the button.

The run was fairly uneventlful. I felt okay for the first half and was running about 8:25 (which is what I had hoped for). But I started to fade in the heat. Again, the volunteer support was not very helpful, but I made it out to the turn around where there was no chip mat. Seemed it would be easy for people to short the out-and-back without a chip mat at the turn around (although I truly believe athletes would not do that). I made it to the finish and hung out with teammates until times were posted.

After all the fumbling around, I was shocked that I was 3rd AG. Then I saw that I missed 2nd AG by a mere 6 seconds (probably the amount of time it took me when I passed the bike dismount!). But I was very happy to bring home a pig trophy. Too cute!!!






I was unimpressed with the directing of this race, particularly with the chaotic free-for-all swim start. I feel seed times should be firm, or why have them at all.