Spirit of Racine Aquabike - Aquabike

I had the third fastest swim of all the Aquabikers. Or at least all of the Aquabikers that were posted.

I was swimming along... doing swimmingly... got myself a fast pair of feet and drafted for a fair amount of the swim. We broke thru the 2 waves ahead of us... It was very hard to sight. The announcer had said..."Go to the yellow buoy and turn right..." So a big pack of us navigated in the fog toward a yellow buoy... When the lot of us arrived, we were informed we were at the WRONG BUOY and we had to turn around, swim to the correct buoy, round it, and come back in order to finish properly.

I turned around. Many others didn't. The water was cold and I think most people just wanted to get the heck out of it. I wouldn't have been able to live with the guilt of not swimming the correct course.

Had a head on collision with another person who turned around to hit the buoy. That was startling.

This water was cold. Like Coeur d'Alene cold.

Not sure. Obviously sight better, don't follow an errant group...

I got my wetsuit stuck on my heels and calves... I fought with it for several minutes, ultimately stepping on it and ripping my left leg out of it, and then my right. After I got out of my wetsuit, I mistakenly put my flip flops on instead of my bike shoes. I stood there for a moment, and was like... "This isn't right!" and quickly put my bike shoes on.

I lack focus in transition. Especially in a large transition area... it's easy for me to get distracted. "Oh, look! Shiny!"

Pay attention. Focus. Concentrate.

Hammered. Wanted to go hard, and test out my nutrition plan for Steelhead. I think I will need a bit more as far as calories go, in order to run 13 miles afterwards.

Not much. I love the Aquabike... swim. bike. DONE! None of that misery with the running afterwards. I was in a much better mood after finishing this race than I usually am. I'm usually sort of disgruntled at the finish line. When I finished this race I was downright euphoric!

Gathered myself in transition, chatted briefly with Maggyruth.


Nothing, really, except my 10 mile run the previous day. My legs were tired when I got started. My sleep was sporadic as well...so, actually, I'm pretty happy with how this panned out, except for the transition time.


I think HFP must have sold this race or started a partnership with another race organizer, as everything was just a little "different" this year. A little less organized.

The Aquabike is an awesome concept and I love it. However, they need to learn how to "handle" it better. After we got swallowed up into T2, we had to figure out how to give our chips back, and track down our own medals. We get no finish line photo, no announcement, and absolutely no fanfare at all. Aquabike is definitely an afterthought. :(