first 100 yards i felt like i crushed it. after each turn around i'd check behind me to see if 120 was on my heals and nope, nowhere to be found. felt great about this. then i realized i was a bit too aggressive and needed to get into a bit of a rythm for the next 200. i hit the wall at the 125 mark and realized there was a bit of a buildup behind me. so i let the 3 people go, got a thank you from one of them, and fell in behind them. i think i may have even drafted a bit...yeah me. rest of the way was smooth and felt good...no more people behind me and i even think i ended up passing another one back.

swim faster. i just need to continue to get in the pool to decrease my swim time. overall think i did the best i could.

made the decision early in the am that i would put my jacket on for the ride. it was cold and rainy out and i did not want to be miserable. smartest move i made because the next 54 minutes on the bike i was perfect. took a bit of time to do this, but it was totally worth it. slipped into my shoes, no socks, helmet on, no sunglasses b/c it was overcast and rainy and i was off.

nada. loved the call i made to wear my jacket. loved even more the call i made to put my rain jacket that i wore to the site over my transition clothes to keep them as dry as possible. i felt very smart this morning. :)

so i rode this course on thursday with docshock and was so happy to find that the first 10 miles were through back country roads and up and down some rolling hills, but the last 5 miles were flat and fast. plan was to elevate hr on first half, then spin easy on last 5 to get legs ready to run. it would have gone brilliantly had there been no headwind on that last 5 miles. oops. didn't account for that in the plan. my flat and fast speed was around 14 mph at times...again, oops. oh well, despite the conditions, (slick roads, turns at the decents of the rolling hills so had to ride brakes a bit, wind and spitting rain) i think that i'll take 16.9. am not disappointed at all.

i don't think there was much i could do. i stood up on the hills to keep a good pace and elevated my hr, but it came down pretty easily. took my feet out of my shoes so as to just hop off at dismount line and this worked really well.

there were volunteers there asking numbers. i shouted mine out and they pointed me to my rack. loved this. thought it was a nice addition. forgot to take the garmin off my bike and transition it to my watch, so that cost me maybe 7 seconds. not bad though. getting out of the shoes on the bike is a big time saver and something i'll continue to do. i haven't mastered keeping them clipped in and starting with them that way, but i think i've got the getting out of them down. i like it. :)

not forget to take garmin off bike. other than that, no complaints.

decided while on the bike that i wasn't going to put socks on for the run for one reason only. jack mentioned that there was a puddle we had to run through and i didn't want soggy socks after the puddle OR at the end when i was standing around. i also decided not to wear the new pink newtons, b/c it was going to be rainy and muddy and i didn't want them to get dirty. how girly is that?!?!

this run was by far my best run in a sprint to date. first off, i ran the whole thing. walked at the water stations for about 7 seconds each time just to take a sip and get hr in check, but then kept right on going. i usually LOATHE the run. i'm usually slllooowww on the run, not that 9:33 is speedy for most, but for this cat, it's a huge improvement. i'm very very pleased. in fact, looking at my average hr, it was at the bottom of my z3, makes me think i can go even faster. am very pleased with this though as i felt great on the run, especially after a harder effort than anticipated on the bike due to headwinds. i may even dare to say i enjoyed it. who knew?! AND...i only got passed by guys. no girls passed me on the run. again, unheard of for me...so happy about that.

then had the t3 crew cheering me in to the finish. saw craig first, then beuhler, todd and jenny. heard jenny yell at me to pass the guy in front of me, so sprinted and was able to catch him. probably annoying to him because really, it was right at the mat, but it was fun for me and for jenny...her cheers helped! :)

aside from my feet being numb for the first mile, which i really couldn't do anything about, maybe push it a little harder. not sure though. think this was a perfect start to my tri season...have a lot of confidence in my training.

craig is the greatest boyfriend in the whole world because he had my coat and pants waiting for me at the finish line to put on b/c it was so cold. so thoughtful. so happy. stood around talking with craig, todd, jenny, beuhler, tommy, chris, john and sue. checked results then begged craig to leave b/c i was frozen.


my own self. everyone was battling the elements and lots o' people went faster than me, so it's all about me going faster. getting better though, that's for sure. finally witnessing improvements. i like it.


race was great. volunteers were great...especially standing around in the cold...very appreciated. thought it was well run, organized and i had a blast.