The shape of the swim was very odd, it took some conferring before I figured out the actual course. Started out in the front of the pack and ended up somewhere in the middle. My wave was relatively small so not too much competition, me and another girl in my age group swam together most of the way. Took me about 15 minutes as usual before I remembered to focus on good form and I think I got a little fast after that point. Finished strong and ran all the way up the sand in to transition.

Try and remember my form earlier, get better at drafting.

A little slow, but still faster than usual for me I think, not too bad considering I'm out of practice. Probably shouldn't have bothered with the gloves, but I'm glad I put on the socks. Had a little trouble getting the wetsuit off, also putting on the Garmin also probably slowed me down.

Nixed the gloves, bike wasn't that long,

I was really familiar with this bike course as it's almost identical the route my Dad and I ride when I'm visiting my parents in Santa Barbara. Being familiar with the course just really helped give me a mental edge. I didn't plan out strategy or anything but it was nice knowing how long/steep hills were, where it sloped up and down, how the turns were and the quality of the pavement. I really tried to push myself the whole way and I think I did so, there was a little headwind coming back after the last turn around and I tried not to hammer too hard there, but after a mile or so it wasn't so bad and I was back up to a better pace. Managed to stay in aero for a lot of it too. Passing was a little hard since it was an open course and we were on the bike path a lot but the Olympic wasn't too crowded so it wasn't that bad. Probably my best Olympic distance bike ride ever.

Nothing

Another good transition, I paused to drink some water before going out since I decided not to run with a water bottle. I racked my bike on the opposite side of my towel though so then I had to go around back to my stuff, not really sure why I did that.

Rack my bike properly.

This was a tough run, I didn't hammer it too hard on the bike, but my running shape isn't what it used to be. The course was about 1/2 a mile shorter than it should have been due to some high tide issues, but my goal was 10k in an hour or less and I think extrapolating my pace I would have done that, so I was happy. A lot of the course was on the beach on what was supposed to be hard pack sand, but most definitely wasn't it. It wasn't as bad as completely lose sand, but it wasn't hard packed either. That made the run fairly challenging, but I tried to make up for it by keeping up a good pace on the parts that were on asphalt and cutting myself some slack on the sand. Hit the point about a mile from the end where I wanted to give up, but pushed through.

Nothing, just work on my running in general.

After I finished I headed to the food, got a hamburger and an orange slice and bottle of water and wolfed that down. Then packed up my transition and came back in time for awards, good thing since I got 3rd place!


General fitness really, the course was just great for me, good swim conditions, familiar bike course, challenging but doable run.


This was the first year they did this race, so it wasn't entirely smooth, expo was pretty small and probably not quite enough volunteers (but close!), but I think they put on a great race anyways. It wasn't too big, or too small, I really liked the course (besides the sand) and my race went very smoothly. Run course could have been better marked, I didn't have trouble with it but I saw a lot of others who did. All the courses were a little random, so it might help especially with the swim and run to make those a little less confusing. Overall very happy with my performance, I really wanted to go under 3 hours and even if the race had had a full 10k, I think I would have done that. Also I got 3rd place which was above my expectations, at first I thought I was 3 of 3, but it turned out to be 3 of 7, which was awesome. It's nice to feel like you really earned it. I was worried moving in to the next age group that it would be impossible, but I'm happy to be average. 1st place in my AG was the top overall female so obviously it's a competitive AG but I'm not as out of shape as I might be considering how long it's been since my last race.