I haven't had the best open water race swims this year. For this race the goal was to pay attention to my surroundings more, i.e. more sighting, and keep an eye on those around me. I started to the far left right at the buoy line and there was some solid contact right off the bat and I knew there would be, but that's okay cause it's good practice for IMFL. I did my best to hold my spot and not let people push me to the left or right. The first leg went alright, and I may have caught some feet a couple of times. I was able to sight fairly straight. I can't say I was able to keep the "pack" in good sight as everyone was quite spread out. Someone told me they kept running into old men from the wave before standing up and walking. I didn't have that problem, but did have to work through a lot of the two waves in front of me. I kept trying to pay attention to good sighting and strong strokes. Got half-way done and thought "thank God, half-way done", made a good turn, and then a good turn again. I had to battle back the thoughts of "are we done yet." I was trying to keep good swimming form, and keep my legs going. For some reason, in tri's my quads/hamstrings always feel too tight swimming. Anyhow, I just tried to focus and kept saying "smooth." I found some good feet twice during that last long leg. That last leg I felt there was some current more so than on the way out, not sure if it was waves or what. The thing I found weird was the last turn buoy wasn't a triangular turn buoy like the start and far turn buoys, it was just a regular orange buoy. I was almost looking for another one when I realized everyone else was turning, so I turned towards the finish too and really picked it up those last 200-300m or so.

Enjoy swimming more. I did much better on this race and I really focused on good strokes and better sighting, appears to have worked. I'm VERY happy with this swim. I asked lots of folks after if they thought it was short, and no one really did. Some had faster times, some had longer times than usual. I think it was probably pretty close to right.

Ran out, got my suit down to my waist, pointed at two male wetsuit strippers, flopped onto my back, and off came the suit, well, with a little extra pulling on the left leg as it initially got stuck, but otherwise it was nice and quick. I love wetsuit strippers. :) Made it to my spot no issues. Except for my spot was almost as deep in water as the lake. The sacks I had put over my stuff simply collected water, oh well. I threw on my bike shoes, my helmet, grabbed my clear lenses, they were covered in water, and it was still raining, so I just threw them down, then headed out with my bike.

Not try glasses at all, clear or otherwise, if it's raining. Otherwise, 2nd fastest T time in age group, and by quite a good amount. Glad I don't wear socks on the bike, and wet shoes, well, you should see how soaked my shoes are after a 4+ hour trainer ride, no biggie.

So, it's raining pretty hard when I start the bike, and for the first few miles it was pretty difficult to get going much about 20mph cause the water pretty much forced you into the middle of the road and passing was a little difficult due to safety. I did some, but you had to be careful where you were doing it. Now, I forgot my HRM for this race, but this is one of the calmest my body has felt coming out of T1 and it's not like I spent a lot of time in T1 calming down.

Then I hit the 6 mile point where we all had to get off our bikes and go up through the grass (that had about 4-5 inches of standing water too) and run for about 40-50m or so to get around the impassable spot on the road. It was fairly backed up at this point, but I trucked through and actually passed a few folks at that point. I got going pretty quick after that. It was probably around mile 13/14 that the girl I was racked next to, also a qualifier for the Halfmax Championships (not that that mattered--more later, very confusing) comes flying by me. I was VERY tempted to stick with her and go. BUT THANKFULLY, better minds prevailed and I told myself to "race my race, race my race" as I was already keeping between 20-22mph. Then around mile 20 or so the other gal racked next to me passes me, but not flying. So, she and I leap frogged each other for about the next 20 miles. In one of the rough chip seal sections her gatorade bottle flew off, so I thought that'd be a good time to pass her, and I did, then later she'd pass me, she put some distance on me and again it was "race my race" but I was keeping her within eye shot UNTIL a pack of at least 10 men and women whom I had all passed individually earlier in the race come whizzing by me in a nice little peleton and put themselves between me and her. Crap, now I can't see her, and I refuse to be a part of the drafting fest so I drop back a little and thankfully a motorcycle comes up and tells them they can't be doing that. The pack seemed to have been led by this guy in one of the Tour de France teams bike jerseys (the one with the red/blue 4 leaf clover??) apparently he forgot which sport he was participating in that day. I made some verbal comments like "nice peleton" "how does that wheel taste" but no response. I was pushing it this part of the race, and finally once they broke up I re-passed most of those folks and it stayed that way. A gal from the 20-24 AG played leap frog with me (she had come up with the peleton) all the way back until we hit the side of the lake heading into T2. Occassionally I felt like I was pushing hard, but I was within my "gamble" range. I actually didn't mind some of the chip seal road because a.) it gave more traction in the crazy rain and b.) it's not nearly as bad as some of the roads I've ridden on here. I will say the course had more hills than I was anticipating. They weren't hard hills, it is just truly a rollers course, some were short, and some were long and gradual, none were steep enough to get me out of the saddle. I had no nutrition problems and ate exactly what I was supposed to eat.
I'd say it rained 90% of the ride. It stopped for a bit on one portion, but then started up again. Sometimes it was drizzle, and other times it was coming pretty sharply. I kept telling myself if all the IM athletes in IMLP '08 can handle this, so can I.

Not much. I mean, I put out the right effort for this, I laid off when I should've as far as chasing the first girl that passed me (she averaged 21.8) and I kept the second girl that passed me pretty much in reach. She was at the rack when I got there in T2, I wasn't much behind. Take away having to slow down for the stupid peleton to disperse, slowing in the rain some, and I think the same effort, even on the roller course, and I could do 21mph. The rain didn't affect me mentally, it kept me nice and cool, you just had to be a little careful.

I got out of my shoes before the dismount line and ran into transition nince and quick. I get to my rack and the girl I'd been chasing on the bike is there and I told her nice riding, and she said you too! I got the bike racked, helmet off, shoes on (so glad that I don't wear socks, cause they'd be soaked and useless anyhow. Thankfully, Newtons are light, body glide doesn't wash easily, and Newtons have lots of mesh and don't retain tons of water. I grabbed my hat and my fuel belt (which doubled as a number belt) and off I went. took me a little bit to get my Garmin hit right, ended up being off by exactly .1, so that works when you're running 13.1.

Oh, I initially started heading out to the left, but was supposed to go right (I wasn't going to the wrong location, just all athletes had to take the same route) so I had to turn and run the other way, cost me just a second or two.
2nd fastest T2 in AG.

The gal I had leap frogging with on the bike (24 year old) comes up next to me and I ask her if we're going to leap frog on the run, she doesn't seem that enthused, and mutters something. So, off I go keeping a decent pace, but a little worried that I might've blown my legs some on the bike. My feet were the only thing, the whole day that stayed a little chilly, and it stayed that way till about the 2nd mile of the run. Around 2 miles in I ate my first GU and I took some Excedrin cause I had concerns about an issue that might arise, but thankfully didn't. After mile 2 I decided to back it down a little bit cause I really wanted to make sure I could push the second half of the run. Once I started nearing the turn around the first time, I started to pick it up a little bit. At about mile 8 or 9 it had pretty much stopped raining and now it was just getting humid. Some of the women from different AG's who had passed me earlier on were fading back. I kept steady, took some water in at some aid stations, took my GUs when I was supposed to, and drank my NUUN/GU2O when I wanted. I kind of had fun splashing through the puddles. On the way to the turn around the first time I saw Tony and we hi-fived, saw some other folks I knew out there, and that was always encouraging. I kept my eye out for the two gals I knew who had passed me on the bike. The one with the really fast bike split was definitely a couple miles ahead of me on the first loop, and the one that went out of T2 just a head of me was FLYING on the course, I mean she could run. She would end up putting down a 1:31 time. That's AWESOME. Then, in those last three miles I was trying to determine when to really pick it up. I wasn't hurting in pain, but I was definitely feeling the day and the race and I really really wanted to be able to pick it up some. Had planned to do that with about 4 miles left, but wasn't read, so thought 3 miles, and picked it up some, but knew I couldn't really push yet, and then with 2 miles left I started picking it up. I kept telling myself "you can collapse at the line, you can throw up if you want to, but you can push for only 2 more miles, it's just two more miles." Because it was humid and warming up now, I did toss some water on my head. Then, I get to that last mile and I pass the 24 y/o that had started ahead of me and then I see the girl with the 21.8mph bike split just ahead of me. She became my rabbit for that last part and I was intent on passing her, and probably with less than a 1/2 mile back, I passed her and was turning it on that last mile. I didn't wait for the last 1/4 mile like usual, I pushed pretty tough that whole last mile and through the chute. I never looked back, but I was worried she'd try to repass me there in the end. I ended up putting about 47 seconds on her. I was definitely glad I didn't try to stick with her on the bike or I'd have blown up on the run too. I made my way through the finisher chute, arms raised, crossed the line, and thankfully I didn't collapse. I did have to find a chair and just sit and breath, but I was happy. I knew I was somewhere around a 5:05, and my previous PR was a 5:09 and that was with a noticeably short swim course (Longhorn '08).

Maybe did the first two miles too fast, but in general, I think I did well here. I wanted to kick a little bit faster or negative split, but I didn't. However I my splits for the two loops were only 4 seconds off each other, so that's a pretty even splt and I'll take it. I really pushed during this run. My previous HIM run average was around 8:22, so this is much better. Plus I never felt like I was going to die, my other two HIMs, I had moments on the run like that.

Had to sit for a moment so as not to collapse. Sucked down some cold water, then a cold sprite, then a PBJ, and a banana and chit chatted with a T3 guy I knew. Then I ended up chatting with the two girls who were racked near me and that I'd had to hold back staying with on the bike. Both were super nice, and we had some great conversation and headed back to our racks together. We all threw away our transition towels because we were in a low spot and our stuff was still sitting in water standing water. We were all qualifiers for the Halfmax Championship and really had no idea how they were going to do it, were we all together as an AG, were the qualifiers doing their own race within a race, who knew? We didn't. Ended up there was no need what so ever to be a qualifier. Had they done that, I'd have been second, but since they didn't I was 5th. Whatever, doesn't matter. It was nice to race with solid competition, and especially nice competition at that. All of the ladies that beat me went sub-5. I was the first to go over 5 hours for our AG. I walked around a bit, stretched a bit, got all my nasty, wet, dirty stuff and hauled it to the car. Put on my compression sleeves and did a quick change out of my tri-top, and then went back to check results and find Celeste.

Celeste and I came back a little after 2000 (8PM) and watched/cheered some of the Iron racers finish. Kudos to them--it was a tough day with all the elements out there: rain, heat, humidity, and it just doesn't have the same hoopla and cheer support that an IM branded race does (race support for aid stations yes, cheer support no). I like hoopla, I think an independent IM race would be very tough for me, so lots of respect for those who conqured it!


Rain and annying peleton on the bike and standing water on the run course. That, and this was not a race I truly tapered to do cause it was training for IMFL in November. A week out from the race and I had an 80 mile ride which became a 4hr 15min trainer ride due to, of course, torrential downpours, and an 18 mile run. This performance shows me that I can go sub-5 if I work to do it. So, that's a goal for the future. I had a good race day and tackled it with the right physical and mental effort (though my mind and the swim still need work). I do still need to drop 10-15lbs. Seriously. So, that needs to happen for me to go sub-5 too.

The biggest victory for me, in this race, is at NO TIME did I think I must be a fool for thinking I could do an Ironman in less than 7 weeks. Can I keep these paces for an IM? No, but I have the fitness, and especially with some training left, to do that IM and do it well. I have to be smart, I have to race my race, and control what I can control. While I'd prefer not to race in rainy conditions, I'm glad that it ended up being what it was, cause that's one more mental toughness training aspect I've overcome. God forbid we have rain on 7 November, but if we do, I know how to deal with it. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. ;)


The race volunteers were AWESOME. I don't know if I'd show up if I was a volunteer and it was pouring rain. I did my best to thank every volunteer I could, especially on that bike course. Some of the best volunteers ever. The race is well organized, though I think they could've done better with the packet pick up portion. That didn't happen till 1400 (2PM)the day prior to the race--that's way too late, and they didn't have enough people staffing it, so there were long lines. I also prefer to get my timing chip in my race packet so I don't have to stand in line for it on race morning. I do hope they never ever consider swim/run/swim as it's a recipe for disaster. I'm thrilled it didn't end up that way, especially as I enjoy the bike so much.

It was AWESOME to meet so many BT'ers. I got to stay with Celeste (CitySky), have pre-race lunch the day prior with Chad and Erin (and hang out in the cold, wet rain pre-race), got to meet mr2Tony, Wavedog, TriOK, Lisac, and Irondreams. On the way up I stopped in Ft. Worth and got to see Comet, Dodgersmom, and Jcagg, and on the way back I got to stop in Dallas to see AimeeP and KSH and Jbrashear. WHAT A SUPER BT WEEKEND and I've probably missed someone. I am grateful for all the BT race supporters and fans, it makes this sport so much more fun.