I guess I never do like swimming with a gazillion other people in the water. My performance was decent; about as fast as I can swim. It didn't feel so great, though. I got annoyed with people zig zagging into me. (I'm sure *I* was swimming straight.) I also had a hard time breathing... I was often breathing every stroke, as opposed to every other stroke.
GOAL #1 acheived: I beat Richard's swim time by just under a minute.

Hmm... I guess I should have practiced open water swimming, breathing and sighting more, and more recently.

This time includes the run up the hill (50 s). There's a steep, short hill out of transition. The volunteers were telling us to walk up the hill, then clip in. But I knew I could ride up the hill, so I clipped in and went. The volunteers were impressed with me!



In spite of opposite rolling, I consistently have trouble putting on my Sugoi tri top. I have to think about this. Different shirt? Different tactic?

The first thing I did, after getting myself up the transition hill, was to drop my water bottle. Yup, in under a mile. (Richard dropped *three* water bottles in the course, so I don't feel too bad.) Oh, and did I mention that I decided only to take one because they have a water bottle hand-off at mile 15? Yeah, so I was looking at 15 miles with no water. And my throat was dry from the swim. I was not happy about that. However, I noticed another "discarded" water bottle on the out-and-back portion of the route, so I was able to stop on the way back and grab it. So I drank somebody's something orange stuff. Provision!

The course was gorgeous, the hills big, the wind strong. Holy cow, the wind was strong sometimes! Going uphill, hit by a headwind gust was brutal at times. I put in a strong performance, though, and even passed a fair number of people. I had some trouble with my gears, which haven't been the same since I got my new wheel set.

Get my gears adjusted. Take two water bottles regardless!

Nada. It was fine.

This was a good performance for me. I didn't know how 6+ miles would go over after 2 hours of other exercise. Well, this is where the training really paid off. The first half mile sucked. I had pain in my right foot. I expected it, and knew it would go away. It did. Then I got abdominal pain. I expected that, too, and it also went away. Things got better in mile 2. Going up the hills was brutal. In the second half, I was getting seriously light-headed going up hill. But I felt strong otherwise and positive and knew I could do it. I knew I was beating a 12-min. mile, so I was happy. I saw other people walking. I vowed not to walk. I didn't.
GOAL #2 acheived: I didn't walk.
GOAL #3 acheived: I finished.
GOAL #4 acheived: I beat my predicted most likely time (3:33:00).

I dunno... just keep training! Hope the running improves!

Walked around with deer-in-headlights look on face. Got water. Waited for Richard. Realized I was in pain. Sat down. Eventually, ate the race food provided by Outback. Yum.


This race was awesome. Very well organized. All the volunteers were great. A nice size. College teams lent some spunk.