It was the first time I'd ever worn a long sleeve wetsuit, and I found the wetsuit to alter my stroke a bit and my arms were sore in slightly different places than when I swim without the wetsuit. I have never been a strong swimmer. I have no fear of the water, just have no idea how to "race" a swim and haven't developed much speed in the water. I love to swim, I just need to work on developing some speed. The discomfort in my arms got to me about 1/2 into the swim and I found myself trying to take fewer strokes to keep my arms from feeling so fatigued. Sighting was very good for me, and I think I stayed on course really well. I've always wished there was some aerial camera that could track me to see just how far off course I swim, but I think I did an ok job at this race. I missed a couple of buoys (swam right by them without seeing them) on the way to the first turn buoy so I was pleasantly surprised how quickly the first turn happened. I tend to get a bit fatigued and mental during the middle section of a 1500 meter swim, and this race was no exception. I was just trying to stay in a rhythm and get to the next turn buoy. There was definitely some chop on the lake and I was feeling the chop a bit as I was getting fatigued. There was no current, just the surface chop that was a bit irritating but that's mostly because I was fatigued and second guessing the decision to borrow and wear the wetsuit. Rank: 30/47. Not great but I swear the athletes competing were all half fish.

I wonder what my time would have been without the wetsuit. I've debated purchasing my own in the past, but I have always managed to go wetsuit-less even in wetsuit legal races without much trouble (ie, I've never swam in really cold water where a wetsuit was a necessity). My arms were definitely feeling some strain from the wetsuit and I felt like it was limiting my range of motion, but I'm guessing the wetsuit did have benefits, I just wish there was a way to know how much it helped my at this race. I know I've read the advantages to wearing a wetsuit, but I wonder if it really made me swim faster. I went back and reviewed my other 1500 m open water swims and when you discount St. Anthony's 2006 (because the current gave me lots of free speed on the way in) and discounting Chattanooga 2006 (when the current was super fast), this race time is right in there with my other 1500 m swims. It was a little faster so I wonder if that's because of the wetsuit or if I could have swam the same speed without the wetsuit because I may have gotten a little bit faster in the water. Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but we'll see how my swim times are the rest of the year on non-wetsuit swims.

I came out of the water and immediately tried to start unzipping and stripping the upper body portion of the wetsuit. I had a bit of trouble with the zipper and then lots of trouble with getting my arms out. I was forced to slow my run to transition and still didn't have my arms out of the wetsuit by the time I hit my t area. I actually took a few seconds to just do nothing and then continued with the effort. It took me a long time just to get my arms out. The legs went a bit faster once I got my arms free but it still took way too long. This experience also has me considering going back to no wetsuit. I am generally a pretty quick transitioner but that wasn't the case today. By the time I was running my bike to the mount line I was pretty down on my self over the entire swim and wetsuit stripping debacle. Rank 39/47 - this is way lower than normal for me.

Either go without a wetsuit, or learn how to get the thing off quicker and without so much effort.

I ranked 36 out of 47 on the bike course. That's just not good. I felt uncomfortable on my bike from the beginning of the ride. I was constantly shifting in my seat and just couldn't get into a good rhythm. I was having some left quad pain for the first ten miles or so and I know its from the strain of wearing the wetsuit and the weird body movements I made to finally get the thing off. I did feel better on the second half of the bike course, but it was already too late and there wasn't enough road left to allow me to bring up my average speed. I remember thinking that Ron and Rivi would probably be able to kill a course like this, but it was a tough course for me. I actually prefer courses with bigger, steeper climbs. This course seemed to have those longer, slow inclines (Ron calls them grinders) and I just couldn't seem to gain any speed on them. There was one section of road that had lots of tar patches and it was not very smooth, but other than that section the road was fairly smooth and the ride was beautiful. It was very rural, and reminded me (scenery wise) of the training rides in Cartersville.

Push harder. Race the race - I went into this race thinking it was just a stop on the way to Rock n Roll Man, so I didn't really have a racing mindset going into it, and I never got any pre-race nervousness because I just wasn't putting much value on this race as anything other than a good day of training. I haven't been focusing too much on speed because my ultimate goal is to complete Louisville, so I have been thinking speed isn't as important as just being able to go long, so I think that mentally I just didn't prepare to race this race.

I managed to get my feet out of my bike shoes while still on the bike course. I did have to slow down to do that, so I still need to practice that and get comfortable doing it without lowering my speed and cadence or just making it happen quicker so I don't lose speed for so long. I road right up to the dismount line, braked a bit, jumped off bike and ran right into transition. I didn't have any yankz or other lace system on my run shoes so that problem cost me a few seconds, but I left my shoes tied and just shoved my feet into them and didn't bother re-tying the shoes. Due to all the time I wasted in T1 and the poor bike split, I decided to go without socks which turned out to be a bad decision but one I'd repeat again. I ranked 1/47 so I can't really complain about my performance here.

Put a lacing system on my run shoes.

When I saw my mile 1 split, I was a bit surprised because I felt so tight and slow coming off the bike, but that obviously wasn't the case. I consciously slowed a bit on the second mile because I was worried about keeping that pace for the entire 6 miles. After the first mile, I felt a little smoother with my stride so I just kept the pace. After I made the turn to head back to the finish, I saw someone I recognized and heard him say he'd see me in a few minutes. I took this to mean, he thought he'd catch me on the run so I did have it in my head that I needed to keep pace to try and prevent him from passing me - it turns out he isn't nearly as strong a runner as I am so I just continued to open the gap between us, but it was nice to be thinking I needed to keep pace so he didn't catch me. I was able to pass 4-5 other runners on the course, but I never caught any women. I was able to close an enormous gap that the woman in front of me had, but I ran out of steam and road to actually catch her. I caught her turning around and looking for me though, so I know she was worried about me. Rank 12/47 - like I said running is my strong suit, but apparently T2s are even stronger.

Wear socks or find a way to seal of the seam in my shoe that rubs against my feet about halfway over my arch. I felt a blister there by mile 3, and when I finished my shoe was soaked in blood.

Grabbed a water and went to meet up with Rivi and Amy to wait and watch for Anica. After Anica finished and we packed up, I went for a short swim with Amy and Rivi. I was definitely a bit tired so I wasn't pushing the swim and didn't stray too far from shore/


Lack of speedwork and strength on the bike.

Being clumsy and clueless on wetsuit removal.

Just not being prepared to race the entire race.


This was a very small race, competitor wise, but the athletes were pretty high caliber and I've never seen so many Zipps in transition percentage wise. I think about half of the competitors had Zipp or some other race wheels on their bike. I think there were only a few road bikes and one hybrid, but everyone else had a high end tri bike. The race director and his crew were awesome. I really hope this race catches on and the race director continues with it. The race venue is beautiful. The bike course is open to traffic but there was such little traffic on the roads that I felt like it was a closed course. Madison is a rural Florida town, but its the perfect place for this race. The race is an awesome early season race and if the race continues next year I will be there without hesitation. And hopefully I'll be ready to race that bike course.