I had decided that I was going to push it in the pool. None of this "easy swim" stuff that I did in the pool swims of last year tris. I felt like I was pushing it and passed several people (5 I think?). The first 4 lanes are actually 2 lanes broken down into 4. I passed well in these narrow lanes too. Overall, feel great about the swim, considering how little time I've spent in the pool. Beat last year's time by 1 second. I was hoping for better time, but I forget that it takes time to cover the side to side movement in the pool. It's not like doing a 500 in practice or in a 25 m pool.

Not much, just train more on the swim. I had intentionally cut this area short in my training as it was such a short swim compared to the other distances.

I felt blazing fast through T1, but don't have a time. Going to try and figure that out. It's nice to race in warm weather when you don't have to dry off. The sun had poked out while I was in the pool and it was partly sunny and dry for the rest of the race.

Get shoes with velcro instead of laces, learn to skip the socks.

THIS WAS THE BEST BIKE EVER. Just on Friday, I was complaining about how my bike speed never changes no matter if I do 100 miles or 20. Today was different. I was flying! And it was easy. First, the ease made me nervous, I thought their had to be a major tailwind. But looking around, nothing was blowing, and after careful critique of my body, I was pushing it some. When we got to the turn around, I was beat, but kept pushing. I decided, that's it- I'm leaving it all out on the bike course. Neighbor Pat passed me about 6-7 miles out from the end of the bike. I used that as my cue to stop drinking to avoid the tummy sloshies on the run. Getsome passed not much later- and I was stoked because I was sure she was going to pass me way earlier than that. I felt awesome on the bike. As we turned off the country roads (and before hitting the few hills on the return), I decided to look at my bike average...18.0!!! I just blasted a long term goal out of the water!!!! I dropped to 17.7 (computer time) by the time I racked my bike. When I hit the dismount line, I hear hubby cheer for me. I announced to him and the rest of the world that I just had the BEST BIKE EVER! I got a huge cheer from the crowd for that.

Maybe save a little for the run. But I consciously made that choice to push it this time. I was totally in my groove!

Laces slow me down.

Get velcro only bike shoes, try speedlaces or yankz or whatever. This felt like it took forever.

This sucked. And I knew it would because I had just had the best bike ever. Last fall at this race, my watch had shot craps on me and I ran without it, so that's what I did today to try and push myself. I got going, ran for maybe a half mile. For the most part, no one was around. My heart rate was out of control, so I walked a while to get it down. Then, I did a steady run/walk combination. As I went, the run segement got shorter and shorter. About half way in, I felt pretty good and steady, for quite awhile, but my brain got the best of me. I was sure my miles were 11 min or more. Now, looking back, if I had as many walk breaks as I did, and still hovered at 10 min miles, I was really running when I was running-- running so fast (for me) that I coudn't sustain it (hence the need to walk). Perhaps having a watch would've paced me better and I could've run the whole run. Also, my tummy was sloshy and because I was alone, I couldn't help but focus on it. I don't understand WHY I was sloshy... I had a total of 1 bottle's worth of fluid over 20 milse on the bike. I didn't drink the last 5 miles or so at all. Gotta figure that out. I've been sloshy every race. I sipped one sip of water at each station to wet my mouth and dumped the rest on me. While on paper, this run looks OK, I can tell you it kicked my ass. Too many walk breaks and I was losing the mental battle.

1. More bricks. I did 2 before this race. One was in April.
2. Watch. Figure it out, but don't be a slave to it if I feel good.
3. Get rid of the sloshy tummy.

Walked with hubby, water water water.


Lack of bricks, running too fast that I couldn't sustain it. I have time to gain in transitions. I should work on that too.


The routes were well marked and there were lots of volunteers to direct traffic on the bike and some to offer direction on the run as well. Fruit, bread from Great Harvest and breakfast burritos were on hand for post-race food. No massages this year, which was a bummer. I would do this race again and again! They are working on building a lake on the property so that 2007 races will be in the lake, allowing them to offer more variety in race distances!