The water was a bit cold (the race director said it was 70 on Tuesday - but it rained a ton since then, so it was probably only mid-60s). It was cold, but not unbearably so - in the three minutes between when I got in and when the wave started, I was mostly used to it. It did constrict my breathing for the first portion of the swim, though. The swim started out very well. I pulled into the lead group right away, and stayed in third, pretty much on the heels of the second place finisher, for the rest of the way. I haven't swum since July, and my arms really felt it. I didn't have any oomph to go and pass her at the end, like I'd wanted. I did a really good job sighting and rounding the buoys again. I'm happy with how my open water swimming is coming along.

Train? I probably do need to swim at least once every two weeks during race season to keep my arms in the proper condition. But my time today was the same as my swim times from the last two races, when I was closer to being in shape, so perhaps it's not really so important.

Ick. I had a really slow transition. Part of it was the rain - my shoes and socks were soaked and wouldn't go on quickly. Same with my shirt. I threw my sunglasses on last and they were all wet and fogged, so I had to stop and clean them off (didn't last, though). - In hindsight, looking at the results, I was ranked 76th in T1, so perhaps it wasn't as slow as I felt it was.

I need to practice transitions (while wet - it makes a huge difference) and try to streamline the process. I'm sure there are things I could do faster. I also need to relace my sneakers - they're done too tight to really slip on right now

How do you properly race on a bike in the rain, across slick asphalt and puddles, when there are turns every quarter mile or so? And my sneakers kept threatening to slip off the pedals. It was really difficult. I just decided pretty early on I wasn't going to push too hard. The last thing I needed was to wipe out. I am not surprised my average speed was slow.

I have no complaints, really. The conditions dictated how I rode. And I wasn't one of the people to finish with large contousions, so I guess I did all right.

This transition was pretty quick. I took off my shirt, which weighed like 7 pounds with all the water it had soaked up. For some reason, I kept my sunglasses on, even though they'd been foggy the whole time. My vision was so poor, in fact, that I couldn't figure out how to get out of transition for a few seconds. Pretty much as soon as I crossed the timing pad to run, I put them up on my head and they stayed there until the finish.

Not think I need sunglasses in the rain!

I just plugged along on the run. I wasn't trying to kill myself, especially knowing how poor my running has been lately. I actually thought I started out fairly strong, but my body wanted to walk by about five minutes. I told myself I was allowed to walk at ten minutes, but couldn't find a good spot (too many encouraging volunteers that I didn't want to see me walk). I ended up not walking at all (except water stations, to drink). My biggest problem was that my foot started to really hurt after about two miles. I realized after a bit that it wasn't my injury, but my skin. My sock was wet and bunched up (because I hadn't been able to put it on well) and it gave me enormous blisters on the bottom of my feet. Both feet, but the right was the worst by far. That was really impeding me on the last half mile or so. The other issue I had was not knowing where the finish was. I rounded the corner by the library and saw the lake, and knew the finish was close, but it took me a few seconds to notice that it was just across the bridge, not over near the transition area. I sprinted to the end, but I still had a lot of sprint left in me. I needed to kick it up well before that, but I hadn't known how close I was.

Know the course better. Be more careful about putting my socks on. I was definitely satisfied with my run time, so I can't complain too much (well, I might be complaining about the blisters for a few days).

Walked around.


My training has really tapered off since school started. I've gone from over 200 minutes a week to less than 100. And I can barely fit that in. Injuries don't help - going out for a quick run requires 20 minutes of heating pad before and at least an hour of ice after. But my tri season is over now, so I'm okay with this schedule. I'm going to cut down to biking a few days a week until the winter, then work back running in slowly, to give the injuries a rest. Hopefully that will give me a nice base for next year.


I liked this race overall. Tons of enthusiastic volunteers helping out, even in the rain. My biggest beef was with the post-race stuff. I had to hang around for two hours after my finish to hear the results. Now, I know they were waiting until the last finisher was done to start announcing, but even then there was a long delay. I think the timing company was being slow. Another complaint: the food. Theo's Tavern was supposed to be providing a "post-race meal." This consisted of a small breakfast burrito. There were also oranges and bananas. Not quite the spread I was expecting when I heard "meal." I would definitely do this race again, but I won't be staying around for the results next time.