Well, I hadn't swam in a long time and surprisingly I felt pretty good. Until about 3 laps in and my left pec started to cramp. I thought that was really strange, so I made sure to back off the pace a little. Guess that's what happens when your muscle doesn't get used for a long time. Only maybe 2 people passed me, so I waited at the edge so they could pass. Didn't swallow any water and felt tired at the end, but not overly tired - what a relief. I wasn't really worried about the swim because it was so short, but I was still curious how I'd perform. I was happy with how I felt and then seeing the results afterwards, I was even more happy.

If there wasn't a pandemic going on for the last year I would've been in the pool a lot. Wouldn't have done anything differently for this race.

Kind of surprised that T1 took so long, but probably just a little rusty. Also, the volunteers were telling me to take the long way out. Wish I hadn't listened to them. Probably only added 5 seconds or so, but still.

One of these days I'll learn to run barefoot with shoes already clipped in. I practiced it a little several years ago, but never tried it in a race.

I've ridden this course before a couple years ago and knew what to expect. Last time it was rainy and wet, this time it was nice and dry and I knew I could corner faster. It was soo cold starting out - 50 degrees or so and being wet. I was worried my quads were going to cramp, but they never did. I also made sure not to kill myself on the bike because I wanted to have a good run. I tried to just maintain a fast steady pace. I am extremely happy with my bike performance. It set me up nicely for the run. Again, I didn't do any race specific training, so my kind of lackluster 18.78mph average is just meh. Had a water bottle that I sipped from a little bit throughout. I think I drank just the right amount.

Nothing

My dismount seemed kind of clunky, but was probably fine to any observers. When I got to my rack, whomever was on the other side of me just like threw their water bottle down and it was making a puddle all underneath my bag. I was irritated (maybe it wasn't their fault) and so I moved my bag out of the way so it wouldn't continue getting more wet. I sat down to put my shoes on. Hadn't raced in these sockless shoes in several years. I was hoping my feet wouldn't instantly hate them. Love my Zoot shoes.

Same as T1, learn to leave shoes clipped in and dismount barefoot.

I started out feeling excellent. There was a younger woman who started right behind me and I heard one of her cheerers saying to go sub 7:30/miles. As she quickly passed me, I laughed to myself and wished I could keep up with her and that if that's what 7:30/mile looked like, count me out, haha. I stayed calm and had really good breathing. Just kept telling myself to take it easy and that if I felt good at halfway, then I could ramp it up. The whole time up to the halfway point I was feeling really good and started telling myself to negative split the run. I almost never look at my watch while running and just go on RPE and the same was true for this race. I just turned up the intensity and passed a lot of people. After the race was over, I realized I probably had a lot more in the tank and could've gone harder the first half, but oh well. I was so happy with my performance.

Nothing

Jennifer saw me finish, although I didn't see her. She caught up with my seconds after. I caught my breath and drank a little water. Stretched and then we actually just headed to transition. I didn't think I was getting an award and the RO had already said they would be mailing awards. Luckily, they opened transition even though people were still out on the bike. I guess in an effort to get people dispersed more quickly than normal.


Training, training, training. Not swimming for a year had its effects and so did not doing any race specific cycling and running. I didn't care though. I just wanted to see how I could do in a race right now. The race got postponed last year to this year.


So glad that this race didn't get cancelled and that I got an opportunity to race. Haven't really thought about racing in almost a year anyway. This makes me want to get signed up for some races now.