OK..I did a little bit of open water swimming before this race, but not enough. I didn't have the horror stories of some, but I never got my breathing on track the whole time. I also had a really tough time with sight...I was all over the place...at one point I was swimming completely sideways!! I basically thew my training out the window and just "survived" the swim...as my time will show. I am proud of the fact that I basically went from "scared of the water" to swimming 750m in murky water with a lot of people around in less than 4 months.

I need to spend a lot of time in open water before my next race. My stroke is not good so I need to take many more lessons.

This transition was tricky due to the long run b/w the swim and T1...a downhill slope on slick grass could have been worse than it was....the people cheering during the run from the water to the transition was awesome. It really gave me a high that I fed off of for the rest of the race.

Not much..it didn't take long and it was smooth.

I did about as I expected on the bike....I figured I would be around 16 mph and I was at 16.2 mph. The course was hilly, but not too bad...I never felt like I could get going b/c we were constantly making u-turns. I dropped my water bottle about half way through so I was "waterless" for the last half of the bike.

I just need to spend more time in the saddle. I went from not biking more than 10 miles in a given year to biking hundreds of miles over the last 3.5 months. I don't think I pushed it hard enough on the hills..I left too much in the tank...more miles should help.

This was simple, but I grabbed a drink of a Gatorade since I dropped my water bottle on the bike. Don't know my time due to chip malfunction.

Not much.

I didn't feel real good on the beginning of my run. It was a struggle to get comfortable running, but it felt good after the first mile. I was figuring a 10 minute mile pace, but mile 1 was around 9min 30 sec. The 2nd mile actually became the next 1.4 miles...a volunteer messed up and sent us into a neighborhood instead of going straight. Oh well, there were families in front of their houses cheering and kids running with us. I caught up with a young guy that wanted to run with me b/c he said it helped his pace...it felt real good when he told me he couldn't keep up and had to drop back. I knew something was wrong when it had been 12 minutes and I hadn't seen the other water station. The last mile felt real good. I had a lot loeft in my legs when I completed...I wish I would have pushed it a little more, but I will know in the future.

Same as the swim and bike...I need to run more. My legs felt really good so I know I can go faster.

Got a water and one of those frozen energy bars (of course they were melted by the time I finished!!). I couldn't even think about eating though...I can't ever eat after a big workout.


SWIM, SWIM, SWIM....I can easily shave 4 minutes off my swim if not more. I definitely trained enough to finish, but I didn't train for speed. I have a ton to work on.


This was a great race. There were lots of friendly people (both volunteers and athletes). I am even more excited about Tri's than I was before the race and I believe this to be a lifelong sport for me. I now have a benchmark in which I can try to improve upon.