ha ha! I MADE IT!!!! and it was the BEST (although slooooooooowest) OWS experience i have EVER had. well, the best of all my 3, hehe. i learned that if i stay far away from people i actually ENJOY swimming out there! i also swim in a straight line, so that was helpful because it allowed me to breath every 3. a problem i found was that i swam SO far on the outside that i'm sure it contributed to my slower time. or, i'm just plain slow. either way, i took FORever, but i was enjoying myself and couldn't believe what a great experience i was having. i was SO stinkin' nervous for the swim i couldn't even believe it - but i survived, WOO-HOO!

uh, swim FASTER than the slowest fish in the lake

pretty good for me, i didn't do anything retarded this time!

just work on getting faster

i absolutely love the bike. and despite my whole "just do this to finish, don't be competitive" pep talk i kept giving myself all last week, i went out like a banshee and worked on passing people right off the bat. i simply can NOT help myself - it's too much fun. and since i hadn't ridden the course before i had only "heard" of what was out there and i was excited to meet it head on. i was anxious about this "old stage" hill with all the hoopla, and i was pleasantly surprised at the incline. although it was tough, and i wasn't riding any faster than like 5mph, it was a lot nicer than what i had conjered up in my head. we have a huge hill here in FC that i kept comparing this too - thinking OS would be harder - and it wasn't. it was easier so i felt very prepared for this. and then the downhill.... heeeeee heeeeee.... that was fun. and pretty, too! as soon as i passed the cops and started through the canyon i got down into my 'pretend' aero bars (i don't have any and i'm jealous of all of you that do) and sailed at about 38mph for quite a while. overall, i was disappointed in my time - i was expecting to be in the 20mph range but at this point and with my giant unplanned taper, who cares? i just did my first oly!

ride faster, baby - gotta make up my swim incapabilities somewhere!

i'm getting the hang of this

nothing, just always be close to the run start ;)

i worked hard on doing a negative split again, although since i just swam a mile and biked 26, for SOME reason i wasn't able to pick up my pace very much. but, since my sprint pace is closer to 8:15 and my stand alone 10k pace is sub 8, i figured this wasn't too bad. but i can definitely gain some time with more speed training in the future. it was fun to BOOK it the last couple hundred yards - i love that feeling of digging deep and sprinting for the finish line - passing anyone i possibly can (not many tho bceause this is where the FAST chicks play!)

nothin - i enjoyed EVERY step

stretched, ate, drank a beer with mom and dad. it's SO cool to have their support. a FC friend even surprised me by showing up! how cool was that?!?!


just my lack of experience and the water that REALLY slows me down when i try and swim.


today was so much fun. it was my first oly, my first experience being surrounded by some SERIOUSLY fast and beautiful athletes, and my first time gaining a lot of confidence in what my body can do. despite my big sudden taper, my 7 months of training didn't fail me afterall. i had a goal of finishing in under 3 hours and i did - and with 33 seconds TO SPARE!! ha ha! i'm gonna be pretty sore for a couple of days but it will be WELL worth it. looking forward to doing this race again next year.