This lake was pretty disgusting. After our warm-up I noted that Richard had green slime in his chest hair. When showering afterwards I found green stuff in strange places and a lot of dirt in my ears. Our wave had close to 100 people, so the start was something of a madhouse. I didn't do any breast stroke, but did deteriorate to breathing every stroke in the second half. I thought I was doing fairly well, but my arms were quickly tired and my time wasn't so great.

Train more. Get back to weight lifting.

Went fairly smoothly, though I was breathing hard.
153/204
8/10

I dunno, practice more?

There was a 20 yd run through the grass from the end of the transistion area to the pavement, which was kindof annoying. I had been warned there was a tough uphill after the first turn. The course was gorgeous, I was breathing hard most of the time. Richard, whose wave started 4 min after mine, caught up with me 20 min into the ride. The hills were fun and not too steep. My max was 34.3 mph. I wanted to break an hour, and did. The run through the grass back to transition was really annoying because it was a bit steep downhill and my thighs were beat by that time.

Not sure.

I was breathing real hard the entire transition. Maybe that was not a good precedent for the run. I decided not to put on my hat since it was still overcast (thanks be to God).
116/204
3/10

Catch my breath, though that would add time.

Well, this was my suckiest run ever (except maybe in my first tri when I got symptoms of heat exhaustion). I was exiting transition, they announced my name (Rebecca Holcombe Michelsen) and I was feeling pretty good. I started up the first hill (on a grassy berm) and promptly got an excruciating side cramp. I walked a bit. Someone encouraged me and patted my back. I started running again. It was so painful I had to stop again. It went on like that the whole run. I managed to run most of the second half, but less than half of the first half. The ironic thing was that because it hurt really bad when I bounced, I could run uphill with little problem, but downhill was excruciating. So this killed two of my goals: to not walk, and to finish in under 2 hrs. Really frustrating, especially since my legs felt like they could run! If I hadn't had the cramp, I would have finished in under 2 hrs easily.

I don't know... More interval training? More bricks? More sit-ups? How do you prevent these cramps? I've never had this problem before.

I must have looked pretty bad, because the people at the finish made some comments I don't remember. Richard met me at the finish. All I could do was collapse in the grass for a while. The side cramp went away, but them I felt vaguely sick to my stomach... for the next several hours. I was bad, I didn't stretch and only walked as far as the port-o-potty. I did manage to eat cookies and bagels and stuff.


Mostly the cramp during the run. Well, that and only having really trained for 4 weeks due to that little wedding we had.


A bit more challenging than your average sprint. The lake is gross, but not terrible. The bike ride is gorgeous. Rolling hills on the bike, and lots of hills on the run. Friendly and well-done event. Set-up always does well. I would have enjoyed it much more if I hadn't had that stupid cramp on the run.