I think I was a little freaked out or reacting to adrenalin because I was having a lot of trouble breathing easily--I thought I was starting out at a relaxed pace (as I practiced SO many time in the pool), but at 75 yards I couldn't be relaxed and sort of freaked out and then ended up doing breast stroke after I recovered with the back stroke. UGH! I was really disappointed in my swim.

I clearly need to work on relaxing and breathing with the adrenalin as opposed to against it!! But, as my husband pointed out, even my bad time was probably only at most 1 1/2 minutes slower than if I had been relaxed and swimming my expected 500/10:20. Crazy thing the swim.

I didn't think my t-1 was that slow (compared to my first triathlon) but I did stop to drink some fitness water before I got on my bike. But hey, at least I remembered to put my bike shorts on BEFORE my shoes this time!

Make sure shoes tied more carefully (I don't have bike shoes yet) and maybe focus more on moving more quickly.

This was a really hard ride for me, but I felt really pretty good about it. The hills were pretty challenging and it was pretty hot out as well. I had a few little set backs along the way--my shoe laces got stuck in my gear right away at the outset and one other time, but I managed to only have to stop to untangle the first time. I had two bad gear changes which required me to stop--both times on a steep hill, once on a really steep hill so that made it hard to get going up the hill again, but I did anyway. The second time my chain came off on the VERY last hill (so disappointing), but I was pretty quick about fixing it. Overall I felt really good about the pace I kept on those hills.

I think in addition to getting bike shoe/pedals, I just need to concentrate a bit more on the gear shifts. I was doing a lot of shifting (up and down those steep hills) and it was the two times I was thinking, 'hey, I've got a little bit of steam to get up this hill' and shifting focus from the riding the hill to something else that I had problems.

I didn't think I was moving so slowly...but I clearly could have been a bit faster--I think I forgot to take off my gloves and had to go back to leave them by the bike.

quicker?

I was very hot and tired from the bike. I was looking forward to the run, tried to start off a little easy to recover a bit, which was helped but the first part of the course which was downhill. Had a few up hills, then flat, but then a pretty big hill at the end. It was quite hot at that time (85F) and I was feeling a little wiped. I was a bit disappointed with my time, but given the bike, I was happy that I didn't have to walk the last part (I saw lots of people walking, and at times I was running almost as slow as a walk!). I felt like I pushed as much as I could; I didn't feel like I had much left at the end.

Not sure. I think I just need more endurance training--more bricks. I hardly did any bricks the last few weeks before the race, partly because I had so little training time during the last couple of weeks of school.

walking stretching


I had a terrible night's sleep the night before plus a sore throat which might have contributed a little bit to my lethargy? Always an excuse!


I think it was just right because it was very much a challenge, but I could still finish!