I've been thinking about a new wetsuit. Pretty sure I would get one prior to the IM. Today I put a rather large hole in it so now it is not optional. Thinking about an Orca 3.8 but will have to order one.

Tried to hit the swim a bit harder than I normally do and this is a pretty good swim time for me. Found myself thinking a lot about the IM swim while I was doing this. It isn't that I can't do the IM swim I was just getting so bored and wanted to take a break just to break up the boredom. Love my swim MP3 player in the pool.

I have never been able to get this wetsuit off without issues. Even races that have strippers it causes problems. It probably cost me 3 minutes today in T1. Of course it save me that in the water.

Since I opted to wear the wetsuit and started in the last wave, the course was full of slower cyclist when I got there. I spent the entire time saying "on your left" some people did not seem to understand what that meant. Had I not worn the wetsuit and gone with the F50-54 AG, I think it would have been impossible to NOT draft if you were a strong cyclist. The results from my AG show some very fast bike splits so I'm thinking that was probably the case. It was the first female group to start so there were some fast cyclists out there when they hit the roads. All groups also have some slower ones and with that many people if you are riding in the 20+/- range there is no way you can stay to the right. The alternative is going to at times put you into drafting whether you want it or not.

I thought this bike course was extremely dangerous and I will not do this race again.

After saying all that: I am rather happy with my bike time. I have been working hard on my bike and I seen those results today.

I was a bit surprised how well my T2 time compared to others. I felt it was a bit slow. I ran well with my bike but got a bunch of grass on my foot and had to remove my shoe, clean the foot and try again.

Did not wear my Garmin so really just ran off perceived effort. I did not want to really hammer the run. The plan had been to work hard in the swim and bike but then dial it back a bit for the run. I think I succeeded pretty well with that. I kept thinking how it took me so long to recover after running the Frederick half marathon at a 7:30 pace and I didn't want to have that kind of recovery again.

Once again, with starting at the end of the swimmers, there were no fast participants on the run course. I did not see a single person that was even close to going my pace. I truly seemed like a rock star out there running. I passed literally hundreds of people on the run. It makes it kind of hard to stay with it mentally when you have no competition. However, I was able to stay mentally focused and in a happy place throughout the run. The last mile got a bit tough but overall this was a pretty comfortable run and very evenly paced.

My run time includes a 30 second potty break. Coming out of T2 and starting the run there was a bank of porta potties. If I wanted to be able to push the run without getting a side stich I didn't have any choice but to stop.

They ran out of medals so I did not get one. They said they will mail them. I really don't care but to a lot of people this was a big deal. A bigger deal to me was they ran out of water in the food tent and only had Gatorade which I don't drink. Got some food and packed up my gear and headed home.


If the water had been just cool enough so that it was wetsuit legal and I could have started with my AG it would have been a completely different day. I wonder how it would have played out? Either way, I am happy with my effort and results today.


Due to the logistics of this race and the bike course, I definitely would not do it again.