This was my first open water race. It was very difficult for me. About 200 m out, I started having a panic attack brought on by not being able to breath. For several minutes, I fought with breathing, trying to rest, my chest feeling constricted. I reached back and unhooked my wetsuit collar in order to breath easier. After a couple of minutes, I calmed down and got into a rhythm. Unfortunately, my navigation was poor. I kept zig zagging across the course. The last half of the swim I felt pretty comfortable.

Warm up better. When I swim in the pool, if I don't warm up well, during my hard swims I have trouble breathing; just like in this race. Practice sighting. Sight more often in order to stay straight.

I had trouble getting my wetsuit over my heels. I did sort of take my time in T1. The swim had me pretty worked up. I tried to relax and regain composure.

I felt very comfortable on my bike. I was in my element after a disastorous swim. Kept HR a few beats below LT, except for the climbs. My HR averaged 157 on the bike. I put a 12x27 on my bike for this race and glad I did. The 27 came in handy on the hills. I didn't have to stand to climb except for the very steep last pitch on the long hill and the transition monster hill.

Not much. I felt good about the bike. I think I went out just hard enough because I got in the run fairly easily. Maybe leave a little more on the bike course.

Good T2. Got everything off and on quickly.

Open up the shoe laces when setting up transition.

I think I drank too much on the bike. I felt bloated and needed to pee. After a couple miles the bloated feeling went away. I got into the run much easier than when I did a brick on this course a couple weeks ago. I ran a 9:35 pace today. A month and a half ago I ran an 8:52 pace in a 10k road race. I'm just not a very fast runner, so a 9:35 after swimming and biking isn't so bad - I guess.

Track my pace by using the lap function on the watch. For some reason I just forgot to do this. I think I would have felt better about my run if I would have had this feedback.

Need more training and practice running.

Walked around. Drank a bottle of Endurox. Ate oranges and watermelon.


Panic attack on the swim. Swim navigation.