This swim sucked it up big time. It was only my second open water swim period but the first was much better than this. The weather was forecast to be terrible. The rain held off but it was quite windy. I think it was sustained winds of 20mph and gusting to 35mph. As of right now, I can only breathe comfortably on my right side….well, guess which way the waves were coming. Yep, right in my face, mouth, nose, etc. I spent a little more than half the course doing breast stroke trying to keep the water out of my mouth and nose. It took me about 2/3rds of the course to finally calm down and settle in to my freestyle. By that time, the damage was done and the time was terrible. At the end though, once I fell into my rhythm, my freestyle was very comfortable. There was a moment in there where I was really close to raising the arm up in the air and letting them pick me up on the jet ski, but I wasn't going to just give up, so I kept on. I came out of the water with maybe a dozen swimmers behind me.

Need more open water swim practice!! Practice bilateral breathing in the pool or calmer waters.

There was a bit of a run from the beach up to the boat dock but there was a carpet once you got off the beach. The course directors had a kiddie pool at the opening of transition to rinse off your feet since we were coming off the sand beach. I took some time to get the dirt off my feet as I wear socks on the bike (and run). I took one GU gel hopping onto the bike.

Nothing. Things went smoothly for me as this was my first Olympic distance race and only my second ever triathlon.

I felt like the bike went well for me. I typically average 15mph in training. I decided once I got onto the bike that with the winds being so strong that I was going to simply ride by feel. I took it easy in the beginning with the headwind so as to not burn out my legs. I knew that as long as the wind did not shift, that I would have a significant tailwind on the return trip. With about 4 miles left on the bike, the rain started. Fortunately, it was a light rain and not a downpour or thunderstorm. There were no aid stations on the bike course, so you were responsible for bringing your own hydration/nutrition. I took one more GU heading back into transition. I planned to take a third later on but it flew out of the pocket of my tri top at some point.

Nothing. I felt good coming off the bike and I wanted to make sure to save my legs as I hadn't been running much coming into this race.

I was pretty quick coming off the bike and sliding into my running shoes, but I needed to make a quick stop at the port-a-potty. Of course, both were occupied (there were only 2!), so I had to wait. Luckily, the wait was probably only a few seconds but felt like forever just standing there.

Nothing. I'm happy with this

I haven't been running much recently as my left knee has been sore. Nothing too painful, but just a reminder that it is there. I had been taking it easy running as I'm trying to build up to a half iron distance in july and I don't need a serious injury now. The knees were a bit stiff coming off the bike but loosened up about a mile in and never gave me a problem after that.

Run more if the knee will allow it. It seems to be getting better, so it's time to run some more.

Met my husband and my parents at the finish line. I grabbed a banana and a water. There was no other food or drink…I'm not sure if there was other stuff available and was simply gone by the time that I finished or if this was everything. I went back to transition and packed up my stuff and walked back out to the car and loaded up for home.


The wind played a significant role in the swim and the bike, but I finished in my projected time, so I'm very happy. That shows that if the weather was a bit nicer, I would have been (hopefully) ahead of my projected time


Overall this was a good race. I would do it again. It showed me how much more I need to work on my open water swimming as my pool times were so much faster than my times in this race. Also was a bit upset that there were no aid stations on the bike course but almost too many on the run course, but we were warned ahead of time so that makes up for it. As long as you planned correctly, you were fine for the 24.8 miles.