Le sigh, I do not know where the time went during the race. The weekend before I swam the exact course in two and a half minutes less. As far as I could tell, I was mostly on course so I can only assume that my form fell apart. What mystifies me is that I passed people...in the wave before me. Oh, but I can say that the last segment headed back to the beach was hellishly crowded. This portion is where the short-course folks join the long-course folks and the density of swimmers intensifies to the point where you can hardly catch a breath without inhaling the splash zone of your neighbor's flailing arms.

I need to find a swim coach. If anyone reading this is one or knows one in the St. Charles, MO area, send them my way. I went to several OWS events to practice and my time is just dreadful. Especially compared to the pool (not that I'm setting any records inside a lap lane).

Bookity book booked it through transition. I even put socks on. Because I like socks when I bike. Clippity clopped my way to the bike mount line and saddled up.

Nada.

They changed the course this year from one lap with an obnoxiously steep hill and a few flat spots to two laps without that hill, but more hills and no flat spots...so, um, my time was pretty similar to last year. I'm a better biker than swimmer (thankfully), so I passed a lot of people on the course. I leap frogged this young fellow about ten times before I passed him and lost him for good. It took me forever to eat my GU so I kept having to yell "On your left!" with the thing hanging out of my mouth and I am sure it sound like absolute nonsense. Also, the Farmer's market we passed twice on the course opened and I briefly thought that maybe a juice smoothie would be more fun than the run.

I probably should have just chugged that GU as fast as possible. I might have managed more intelligible warnings.

Clippity clopped the bike back to the rack. Not many bikes back made me feel good...especially since there were so few there when I left transition after the swim.

Dunno...I'm not coordinated for that whole riding with your feet on top of your shoes. I'd rather not risk injury.

So, the run was going to be the dodgey part for me. The Wednesday before the race I went for a short 3 mile run at a quick pace and when I got back I noticed my right foot was sore and there was a weird bruise on the outside of the fifth metatarsal. At first I thought, "What on earth did I whack my foot on?", but then I thought...no, I would have fallen and died if I had done that while running. And, it hurt to put weight on the foot. No Bueno. So, my husband tracked down a podiatrist the next day and he x-rayed the foot to eliminate a possible stress fracture and it turned out I sprained some miniscule, but majorly necessary tendon. I proceeded to ice that sucker like there was no tomorrow and somehow by race day the bruising had faded and I had no pain. But, because I have a half-iron distance in September, I decided that I would run conservatively. Whatever pace would allow me to keep my form in check. So, no GPS watch tempting me with a pace. I passed a few people on the run, maybe only one female. And was only passed by one female (younger than me though, phew)! Up that last hill and I'm sprinting to the finish, because it is more fun to sprint through the finish.

Honestly, I was just happy to get through this run without further damage to my foot. And my pace didn't end up being tragically slow, just not my normal "run like your hair is on fire" pace.

Acquire medal, water, Gatorade, a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, some chips, stagger around, sit in the grass/shade, obtain plaque for First place. Yes, I got first place in my age group. And also last place. Because I was the only one. I don't know how that even happened. Normally there are quite a few ladies to contend with and last year they schooled me and I took third. So, not quite as thrilling to get first out of one.


Sprain of the peroneus brevis tendon and the 1,000 armed sea monster trying to drown me during the last swim segment.


I really like this race for a number of reasons. It is close, it is not too easy or hard, there is great volunteer and spectator participation and this year they had a fantastic shirt/medal featuring the solar eclipse. The weather is borderline tolerable, generally.