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 Swim
Comments: The worst part was getting into the water... it felt like trying to wade through bark mulch and avoid an obstacle course of boulders hidden under the murky water to be able to get to the wading start... kinda icky, but the water was calm which was a nice change from all the other times I've been in open water so far! There were also relatively few of us that were doing the Olympic distance so I was able to have a mostly clear swim with no one kicking me (other than the one woman who decided to swim over me as she couldn't sight worth a damn) and was able to swim without really having to worry about anything other than where the swim exit was as it really wasn't marked at all other than with a guy standing by the ramp with a white t-shirt on. Not really helpful, but I was happy with my swim so I didn't really care. What would you do differently?: Find some way to go faster!  Transition 1
Comments: I really don't know what happened here - I'm usually a lot faster in transition, but for some reason I just couldn't get it together today. I was having troubles with everything... even getting my helmet and sunglasses on seemed entirely too challenging. Possibly because I was sick and had taken about 17 different cold medications? What would you do differently?: As usual, try to be faster. I'm sensing a theme here...  Bike
Comments: Oh god... the hills... they just never stopped! The course was almost exclusively on the windy, hilly streets around the castle and I can tell you that the amount of swearing I did in my head would have impressed a seasoned trucker. There were gradual hills, short hills, long hills, steep hills, and just to make you feel a tad better, a couple of short downhills in between. Ouch. What would you do differently?: Train on the hills more? Oh, and be faster. Transition 2
Comments: Same thing as for T1... I just couldn't get it together. My brain felt like fudge and my body felt like it was moving through molasses, but I knew there was only 10km left to do, so HTFU already! What would you do differently?: Please see the above comments of being faster... it still applies.  Run
Comments: Sucked. That is my only word for this run. Oh wait... super sucked. That's better. My legs were absolutely toast from the gruelling ride and my right quad and hamstring both decided to start cramping up almost right away. I walked. A lot. My only goal at this time was to not be lapped by Tony (and I wasn't - yay me!) but he caught me somewhere between the 2 and 3km mark. I was slow... painfully slow, and had to keep walking every 100m or so because of the cramping quads. I wanted to cheat sooooo badly and take the turn off for the 4km course, but no! I would finish properly even if I was DFL! I wasn't, but I also wasn't far from being DFL. I don't care though - I finished! What would you do differently?: Not be sick, not suck at running, and go faster. See? I told you there was a theme here! Post race
Warm down: Not really any to speak of... I just wanted to be done and outta there! What limited your ability to perform faster: Um... if you read any of the above, you'd know. Event comments: I'd like to do this one again next year... and train properly for it! Last updated: 2011-06-20 12:00 AM
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So... in our infinite wisdom we decided to hire a car and drive out to this event as it was pretty much in Wales and the cost to take the train would have been almost double the cost of driving... little did we know that the estimated 3.5 hour travel time would become almost 6 because of traffic. We finally got to the site (we were camping the night before the event) and walked around the castle grounds which were very, very cool, saw where transition was going to be, checked out the entrance and exit for the water, and set up our campsite beside the lake for the night. All would have been okay except for a couple of things... I was ill having just gotten into the nasty times of a chest/head cold, the music blaring from somewhere on the castle grounds, the guy snoring like a chainsaw in the tent next to us, and the absolute downpour of rain that started somewhere around 2am and lasted til about 5am or so. Such fun! The rain finally eased and I was able to catch a couple of hours of sleep after shivering for what seemed like ages, and then suddenly the alarm was going off. I have never wanted to DNS a race so badly in my life, but decided that I had already paid my money for this damned thing (my first Olympic distance!), and how hard could it be? Sigh, I really wish I was smarter.
There was no real warm-up to speak of other than to keep as many layers on as possible until time to get into the water... shivering counts as warming up, right?