Excellent swim. I've been training hard for this for weeks. After my performance at Jersey Girl, I was really gunning to win my wave here, which I did. I started like a rocket, with a super-hard kick to get out ahead of the pack so they wouldn't be in my way. There was one lady on my right (my breathing side) who hung with me and I spent a few hundred yards trying to gain some distance from her. When I ran into the back of the previous wave, I swam through a tight space between two guys and gained some breathing room. When I rounded the buoy near the bridge, I was in the middle of the previous wave, which caused some trouble. I didn't have a clear path and it wasn't easy to sight the buoys among all those flailing people. I ended up taking it a little wide (perhaps too wide) toward the shore, but it took me close to the final buoy marking the boat launch, so I had an easy slip into the finish. I did manage to stay ahead of the other lady, but not by too much.

I wish I had a better line toward the end, but there was so much traffic I'm not sure what I could have done better. I wish I could have stretched it out sooner - I was really keeping a stiff pace - but I knew that I couldn't afford to let her gain any ground, so I had to maintain my speed. It worked out, since I was able to maintain it pretty well. I got out of the water and still felt a little disoriented, but not nearly so much as at Jersey Girl.

A little shaky at first. I had my gear lined up well and knew what order I wanted to do things in, but felt I wasted a lot of time when I first got in there. I was still slightly disoriented and my brain wasn't ready to go yet. Because I was still so wet, my clothes were sticking to me, making it hard to get them on. It wasn't great, but I managed to be more organized than at Jersey Girl once I got my head into it.

Get my head in the game immediately. I guess practicing transitions would help there. It was a little sad to be the first woman into transition but not the first out. The other lady only beat me by a second or two - I was running right behind her with my bike - but it was still clear that I could have gone faster.

Really nice bike - my second fastest ever. I've been working the bike so hard lately I knew this would be good and I delivered. It felt a little rocky at the beginning because I was so wiped from the swim, but I just tried to keep my cadence up and build into it. I really enjoyed the bike course - once I got going, I was able to look around and bask in the beautiful countryside, which was nice. I also had paid close attention to the course map last night, so I knew where I was and how much I had left, especially when the finish line got close.

I knew it was a dangerous turn into transition from the road at the end, so I took it down a notch as I came into town, choosing not to pass the guy in front of me and to back off so I wouldn't cause a traffic jam making the turn. I didn't really need to do this (at least, not as soon as I did). Seven or eight other people passed me going down that bit of road, suggesting I was taking it too cautiously.

Definitely a T2 PR. I even made a mistake, running down the wrong row with my bike. Once I got into the correct one, I was able to rack my bike without any problem, throw off my helmet and go. I did an excellent job getting my watch off of my bike on the way into transition so I didn't have to worry about it once I was in there.

Just know where my stuff was. But I ran over to a towel that looked like mine in a row very close by, so I think it was a reasonable mistake, and didn't take too long to recover from.

I can't believe the run was so great. This is my third best triathlon run ever. I started out feeling really awful (didn't help that the start was uphill), but I just tried to calm myself down and keep putting one foot in front of the other at whatever pace my body was up to. I tried to keep my arms nice and low the whole time. After five minutes or so, I think my stride lengthened and things felt better, but they never felt great at any point. As I approached the finish, I tried to figure out when to kick in with a sprint so I wouldn't die before the end, which was tricky because I wasn't feeling like I could sprint at all. I ended up kicking in earlier than I felt ready for, but held it and even accelerated a bit toward the finish line. My time was 19:54 at the 2 mile marker and 29:11 overall, so I clearly did some serious negative splitting.

The only little thing I could improve here is not to walk. I walked when drinking at the one water stop, which I am ok with, but I also walked for 5-10 seconds around mile 2.5. I felt like I needed a mental recharge. I really didn't walk long and doubt it helped me, so that's the sort of thing I need to cut out.

Walked around.


Today? Nothing! (Maybe the seven years I took off from the sport before this summer?)

Last night, I predicted to Jeff my times for each leg. I later adjusted them slightly slower, thinking I couldn't do all of them together. As it turns out, I was on the lowest end of every original prediction (7ish min swim, 40-45 min bike, 29-31 min run). I think my performance was exactly on point with my training over the past month.


Great race, but ran a bit late. We definitely did not start at 7 and the awards ceremony was not at 9. I left in the middle of the awards and it was already 10:35. I would totally do this race again - I loved every bit of it - but they need to work on the punctuality.