My goal for the swim was to complete it. With 25 minutes of OW swim experience, and a few months of pool swimming to my name, this was realistic. The good news is that I didn't flip out. The bad news is that I swam most of the course with my head above the water, and a fair amount of it on my back. Performed a good deed by saving some poor woman who was backstroking her way off into the yachts.
A few people who have raced previously were saying that this was the choppiest they have seen this water, so while I'm not happy with my performance overall, I'll take it.

Nothing, considering my swim experience. Going forward, I am adding one OW swim per week to my training schedule to address this.

No transition times in this race, but I did manage to time myself coming out of each transition. This should be fairly accurate since the mats were at the beginning of the transition area. Transition went well, remembered to do everything I was supposed to. I was a bit dizzy after the swim, but it passed quickly.

Get on my bike a little faster. It may have been a little leisurely.

Goal was to complete with over a 16mph average speed. I had ridden this course three weeks ago, and had a hard time on the hills. Addressed this in the interim by taking a new approach to climbing, and it seems to have worked out well. At the beginning, I was a little too "hello trees, hello cows", but was able to pick it up once I got settled in. Most of this ride was a very comfortable pace.
At one point, there was payback for my good deed to the backstroking woman on the swim. A woman who was a bit bigger than me started yelling at me on a hill climb. She goes, "I know you can kick my a$$ on these hills, I don't want to have to pass you". So I realized she was right, said "Thank you", then dropped her. I made sure to thank her again after the race, she made my ride.

Not much at this point, I need more race experience before deciding.

Passed my area by about 5 feet, so I had to double back. Little bit of trouble racking my bike and getting the socks on. Didn't start running with my bike helmet still on, so that was pretty good!

Paid more attention to where I was going. I was a little (more) spacey (than usual).

My goal for the run was sub-26:00. Due to the chilly day, my feet were numb coming off of the bike. Managed to find my legs within the first three minutes and keep a pretty steady pace. Didn't think I'd be running under an eight minute mile anytime soon, so I am very happy with my performance on this run. Actually, I still can't believe that I ran this fast.

Probably could have pushed it a little more. Who knew?

Nothing, unless you count talking 100 miles a minute. Waited for Steve's dad to come in, then walked around a bit and ate lunch.


Triathlon race experience and OW swim experience. Also probably wasn't as focused as I should have been. Working on it!


Overall, a good event and a good first-time race if you're up for a challenge. It's also a pretty cheap event in the world of triathlon, and the brownies were good. The things holding me back from rating the race as a 5 are: not USAT sanctioned, no transition times, and the swim was started in one wave.