This was my very first OWS - and it was an experience. I put myself (and rightly so) in the novice wave. I started sort of to the front and left side. Started out doing freestyle during the washing machine start - and surprisingly, it didn't bother me to be hit and bumped. All was pretty good until about 200 meters out when I caught a big mouthful of disgusting lake water and thought I was going to feed the fish my breakfast. After that, I couldn't get into any kind of freestyle rhythm, and relied on some breast stroke - and yes - I'll admit it - a lot of elementary backstroke. The funny thing is, I was passing people when doing the elementary backstroke - only bad thing - ya can't see where you are going so I went off course a LOT!! Discovered also that it is hard to do breast stroke with my wetsuit on - whenever I flipped over to see where I was going, it felt like I was standing still. Began having thoughts of "What have I gotten myself into - and have I just totally gone crazy - Why am I out here?? - but after I reached the big red bouy, I could see that there was an end in sight, and I was indeed going to survive. My breathing was a little better, so I rolled back over and threw in some occasional freestyle. When I hit the first hint of sand, I stood up - and immediately had a sense of relief and accomplishment! I let the wetsuit stripper unzip me, and I began to walk/run up the small hill to transition. Saw a lady from my triathlon class (who was in my wave) on the hill into transition as well - She was one of the weaker swimmers in class - so my feelings of elation quickly faded - knowing that she made it out of the water before I did. I picked up the pace, passed her on the hill and passed my chip off to Jay.

My sighting was awefull (hard to sight going backwords) and my total lack of experience swimming in the open water with my wetsuit was really a hinderance to my performance. I'm going to try and do some of the dip and dashes at Aurora rez later this summer before my next tri in August - to try and get this monster under control.

I was a little disoriented taking the chip off and handing it to Jay - but somehow got it done. Since there were no shoes to put on and no bike to run out with (since my leg was over) - I just cheered Jay out of the transition area and went to find a good place to keep an eye on the course so I could see him come in. Met Zev who was there to check things out! Nice to meet you Zev, and talked a little bit with Matt (blackbud) who was out there supporting Jen (numberswoman).

Nothing - since this was just a relay.

Jay did this and had a good time - considering he didn't train at all - as I kind of coerced him into doing this with me earlier in the week.

Jay and Jessie passed off the timing chip and Jessie was on her way out!

Jessie did this portion - She is usually pretty fast - but since track ended middle of May, hasn't really run at all. She said it was hot - and wasn't happy with her performance - I just know that she ran faster than I ever could!

None - unless you consider standing around flapping my jaw as a warmdown.


I'm slow - and ok with that - I'm a 43 year old mother of five - and it is going to take awhile to make this body perform the way I want it to. But - I think being out there is more than half the battle.


Cold pizza - yuck - not my idea of good post race food - but they had plenty of drinks. I didn't win any door prizes or catch any of the water bottles - but had a good time - spending the morning with my hubby and my daughter.

I've uploaded some pictures to this race posting and will put a few more in my album.