The water was low with poor visibility and at the water level we were swimming at, you ended up swimming in some pond vegetation. Apparently a dam was inadvertantly left open the day prior. The course was very short, big buoys.
They started swimmers running through the timing mat every 3 seconds. If the athlete in front of you didn't get much distance after running and diving in, then you either dove on top of him/her or had to go around. I kinda went around and dove half on top of some poor girl.
Water was very cood in the pond, I had a rough time breathing in water that cold, and especially felt it when I came out of the water - couldn't catch my breath to run, which gave me the longer swim segment split.

I'm pretty sure the swim time was the time you ran over the timing mat on shore til you actually entered the TZ, because my watch times didn't match. I know I took longer than 3:43 from the water to the bike mount!

Ran/walked to TZ from water...literally could not catch my breath.
Hung up in wetsuit again :)
Although T1 showed a 3:43 time, it took much longer (see comments in swim). My hub saw me come out of the water and I had to pass him again coming out of T1. He later asked me what took me so long to come back and that he thought something was wrong with my bike. *slap*

Bike course was pretty technical for me. Endoed once, had to push bike up 2 muddy hills. On the hills, the better riders were riding UP the side of the dirt trails ON THE WET grass (huh?).
There was one part that had a tiny drop on it, with some nice sloppy mud right before it and down below. Ideally, if you had enough speed, you'd easily jump it, land and go. And ideally if there was hard packed dirt before and below the jump, you could do it. I was going too fast approaching it with my mind made up to jump, and the second my wheels became bogged down in the soft mud, I knew I was in trouble. If I did jump, I'd have gotten stuck in the mud down below anyway. So I slowly went over this ledge that had about a 4 foot drop, front wheel first, damn near 90-degrees to the ground, and I went over my handlebars. It happened so slowly that I actually watched my front shocks compress on impact, and I had time to negotiate how to I wanted to separate my bike from my body during the fall. The fall didn't really hurt, but it must have looked bad because a guy behind me stopped and was about to get off his bike to help me. He just yelled "you ok?" when he saw me jump back up (before anyone else saw me!)
In retrospect, that was kind of irresponsible riding on my behalf, because it was a dangerous place where lots of athletes could have piled up with my dumb butt wallowing in the mud. Whatever - person in front has right of way, right?

Spend more time on trails, not really for the sake of a better bike time, but because it's fun!

I don't ride clipless on my mtb, just have some Power Straps. Hop off, rack, helmet off, grab visor, pony up (tie up the mop in a ponytail) on the go!

The run is always the most fun part for me. This is where you get to cheer on other athletes or small talk and joke with them. At that fallen tree mentioned above (Running Course description), me and another guy were running kinda side-by-side and we burst out laughing when we saw it. I said "go ahead, Rambo" so he could go ahead of me. We ran and joked a little for a while, me in front sometimes, sometimes him in front....after a while he was able to get some speed in front of me and he thought he lost me. I liked having him in front of me so I could figure out my own footing based on where he tried to go. I surprised him with about 1/2 mile to go because I got up right behind him and yelled "Don't let me catch you" and we ran in together talking about places we fell on the bike....then we really were trying to outpace one another close to the end (he beat me). Outside of the chute, he says "hey 'blue', thanks - nice race!"
Awwwwww......

Nothing....


I didn't take the chance to evaluate this race to that extent. It was a fun "try it once" thing.


GOOD TIMES! Even though written up 4 months later, I could easily recall this race.

I think if there were as many offroad tris as road ones, that I'd do these more often.
This tri was part of a Triathlon Festival weekend with the road tri the day before. There were many vendors situated inside a resort hotel's "village area" so you could easily walk a few steps from the tri expo into a quaint Waterville Valley shop.
This race was good for spectators as Keith Jordan's announcer does a great job. My hub said he learned alot of tri facts listening to him, and they're the type that announces your name if they can find it as you approach the finish line.