My first mass start experience and first olympic distance tri. I was positioned at front of pack so I was mauled by the packs of college tri team young guns right off the bat. Took a little time to settle down the nerves from all the contact and get a groove going. Choking on lots of water during breathing due to chop but kept my cool overall, only stopping once and doing back stroke to settle down for a few yards. Never felt like I was getting good deep relaxed breaths due to chop and wet suit felt too tight. May be too small, but could have been nerves and cold too. Looking at the huge distance between all those buoys I momentarily thought I was in over my head, and just wanted to quit. But the encouragement and advice from my more experienced friends kept replaying in my head and calmed me down. Did better staying on course, but still had to sight a lot and correct my usual pull to the right. Glad to get it over with.

Not much. Try to warm up a little.

Amazed T1 was this fast. Ran up on beach into the hands of a wonderful wetsuit volunteer, plopped down in the grass and they got if off quick. Had a little trouble getting socks and shoes on, as I didn't have my 5 gallon bucket ready as a seat, and just did it standing up, trying to keep balanced. Breathing heavy but ok.

Have the bucket ready to sit on, that's the main reason I brought it!

Good ride overall. Little wobbly on the clip on aerobars, first race with them but had decent amount of practice in training. Had a little incident with Gu. Wanted to do one at beginning of bike leg, tore of top with my teeth, and accidentally started squirting the gu in my mouth and started swallowing along with the top of the packet. Started choking a little and almost panicked and started coughing and trying to get it out. Coughed up gu and spit all over my legs and bike. Funny afterwards, but at the time I was thinking what a way to go out! There were a lot of college tri teams in the olympic, so I had the added benefit of having a cute little coed as a pace bike in front of me to keep me motivated ;) Was hoping for 20mph average, but winds and course kept it down a little. Ran around 23-25 a good portion of the more downhill return.

PREPARE THE GU!

Haven't started flying dismounts or shoe tricks yet. Not sure I will at my age and level. Overall amazingly fast especially compared with my dismal transitions at my first race. One of my mentor friends who was there as a spectator (he had done a full ironman the previous week) was shouting encouragement and advice as I exited which really helped keep my focus.

Nothing

Legs pretty messed up at start. Had tried to stand up and stretch on pedals at end of bike, but felt like left calf was trying to cramp, so didn't do that much. Water station close to beginning, so I walked that to try to get my legs going. Walked a little too far, but got going ok. I'm a slow runner, and have just got up to 10k distance, so tried to settle into my usual 9.5min/mile pace. Couldn't pick up pace much. Sun came out and it started warming up which got me hot fast. I struggle in the heat. Managed to keep going replaying the pep talks from my friends and watching my pace and distance on the garmin. My overall race goal was 3 hours, and I saw that it would be close, but doable and that helped keep me going. Managed to mount a sprint at the last quarter mile or so to squeeze in with 12 seconds to spare below the 3 hours!

Maybe try to put in short walk breaks (I usually train with run/walk method) and see if I could get the running pace up enough to be overall faster even with the walks. Just need more time and practice. Before 4 months ago, I hadn't ran a mile in almost 30 years.

Walking around and stretching. Legs pretty shot, especially hamstrings.


Age, and training level. Better speed will come with more training I think.


Proud of my performance for first olympic distance at 56 years old. Ready for more challenges and will continue training hard.