Splash and Dash at Marlton Lakes - Biathlon (swim/run)

This was my very first open water swim race EVER. Yes, I can do this distance in 10 minutes in the pool, but I was pretty happy with this time. It was weird to see nothing except lake sludge when I put my face in and so the first 5 min is a mental thing more than physical. Once I calmed down, I was fine. Did about half breaststroke and half free.

Do a little more free. Honestly I was pretty happy as this was supposed to be just a training race to get used to the OWS.

Did a swim/bike tri relay in April and my transition time was 5 minutes, so this is getting better!

Very sandy transtion area, so I tried washing my feet twice and it just couldn't get completely clean. But the little sand in my shoes didn't seem to affect my run at all.

This was a simple out and back course. The best part was that I was starting as some of the race leaders were finishing, and several of them gave me high fives and cheered me on. I always imagined a true out of shape back of the packer like me isn't even acknowledged by the race leaders. You guys rocked and completely took my by surprise! After that, I cheered on many runners coming back the other way,

My sister did this race with me, and I was faster on the swim by 2 minutes, but she caught up to on the run. She could have run the last mile faster I think, but choose to stay with me and keep me running.

I've just started completely running the distance in the last few weeks. I moved from run/walk intervals to completely running, so I was happy just to complete the distance. And it was a 4 sec PB from my last 5K one month ago!

This was a training race for me for before my first full sprint tri at the end of the month. My goal was to finish under 1 hour, and I was very happy with 53 min.


Great local race. Very nice volunteers and race organtizers. It's small, but friendly.