Did not warm up. Mistake. As I ran into the water, the murky, muddy, black ick that was the shore of Lake Erie this morning (it is not usually like this but some type of current had washed a primordial ooze onto the shore) and put my face in, I kind of panicked. Had trouble catching my breath, felt bad, got anxious. I kind of rolled over onto my back and caught my breath and then started again. Eventually I started to feel better and by 200 yards in I was doing well. Strange experience. Actually had a great swim for my skill level. Very happy with this.

Get in the water, get my face wet, warm up.

Wetsuit strippers rule! My first experience with this. You lay down and in a second the wetsuit is gone. How cool is that? Rest of trainsition was great. No one to help me, no chairs but that was ok. I found a spot and got to work.

Be a faster swimmer:-)

Ok. This turned in to a long training day for me when I got the Kona lottery slot for October 8. I never had any intention of running the marathon to finish this. My coach still wanted me to do a long run this weekend so I did almost 19 miles at a fairly stout pace on Friday, two days before this race. Well, surprise, surprise, let me tell you that my legs did not feel great from the get go. I never felt like I could generate the power I wanted to and generally felt pretty lousy for the whole ride. Miles 60-90 really sucked for some reason. Even though I did not intend to run (at least not the full 26.2) I was trying to practice my pacing as if I were going to run off the bike.

Not run two days before I was going to try to ride 112 hard miles.

Although my race was over as soon as I got off the bike, I ran through and practiced my transition to the run (T2 was empty at this time so I did not use anyone's resources/volunteers. I had already decided that if there were others there that I would just stay out of the way). My transition was very fast and I felt great to be off of the bike.

Nothing. If I can be this fast in the future, I will be doing great.

Ok. my race is over but my coach wanted me to run for 40 minutes off of the bike. I ran out of transition, on to the first part of the course with the other athletes, and then turned off of the course as soon as I could. I carried my own hydration and gels so I would not use anything I didn't pay for. There was some confusion from the volunteers as I exited the course but I got everything straightened out. Ran 1.5 loops around the "island" of cedar point.

Ran 5.25 miles in 40 minutes and felt great. This is my goal ironman marathon pace so I hope that with good fueling and an appropriate taper I can keep it together and runa good marathon on race day.

Really? I feel a sense of let down that I did not do the whole race. This was planned as an aquabike only and I did what was planned but I felt really good running and a big part of me wishes I could say today that I did the whole 140.6 distance. I guess that will just have to wait another month.....

Once again, Rev 3 is just a class act and puts on a great race. I sure don't mind giving them my money when they do things this well. If you have not done a Rev 3 event, you should do so! Thanks also to all of the volunteers. The guys in the change tent were awesome and the people on the course were great.