i really focused on form, staying relaxed and keeping up a good kick. i was really hoping for better than this. it's a PR. I'll take it for now. i knew that i'd need to be faster to have a chance in a competitive age group. i just give up too much time in olys on the swim.
i really have a suspicion that my siting and line sucks. i'm not sure how to work on this. might be spending a lot of time at the quarry next year.

i need to swim more. plain and simple.

i just felt completely out of it in t1. i usually do some good visualization of transitions prior to a race. i didn't do that here. i felt a little spacey as a result. i had to to take my chip and my garmin off to get my wetsuit off and then i wanted to make sure i got my wetsuit in the bag they provided. it's expensive enough that i didn't want to just hope that they'd do it for me. the ground was really slippery running in my cycling shoes also.

if this had been an A race, i would have put more thought in my transitions. in the future, i might opt to not wear my garmin if i wear my LS wetsuit. it is just too much of a pain in the A to get my wetsuit over. i'm curious how other people counter this.

i felt really fast on this from the beginning. i was passing people like they were standing still. about 3 miles in I saw Bailey on the side of the road. I stopped to give him my extra tubular and we struggled a bit to get my sack off to give to him. Not sure how long it took.

it was raining pretty decently for much of this ride. there was a lot of spray from other bikes. the course was very wet. i took the corners really easy. the time gained by pushing the corners was not worth it to me. I did come out of the saddle for almost all the hills. I wanted to try to push this bike.
I was really happy to see that this was the top female bike split. i got off not feeling too spent, and i stopped in the middle. i feel like i can take this a lot further. i'm excited.

nothing.

again, not a great transition, but the conditions were challenging. i was pretty conservative heading to dismount because the roads were so wet. i almost slipped a few times running in my shoes again, and i had left all my stuff in a plastic bag because it was pouring when i set up in the morning. all in all, this was fine. also, as a point of fact, i went sockless on this run.

nothing.

i really just held on for this run. didn't feel great from the beginning, but i kept telling myself just don't choke. I knew that most of the women in my AG that were competitive were in the first wave. i had been in the second. I was curious to see when i would see them all. I hit the turn around in a pace that would be a PR if I could hold on. I willed myself to do so. Almost tossed my cookies a few times.

i need to add a few training rides where i push the pace on the bike, push the climbs, etc and then brick off of them. i think i can really push the intensity higher on the bike then i have been doing and still have a solid run.

doing an IM two weeks prior and not really training much at all for the last 3 weeks.


they really needed more sentries on the run. there were a few intersections that were unmanned and it become a matter of looking for the old, painted arrows. I know of a competitor who took a wrong turn, got lost and DNFed. this should not have happened. otherwise, great race.