I need to practice open water swimming and become more comfortable in the water. The entire swim I was struggling and just trying to finish it.

Try to relax and just swim nice and even. Surely this would be faster and more efficient then fighting the water with my head above it. Need to train in open water.

Tired after the swim. My arms were dragging and sore. Put my helmet on and buckled first thing. Ate a caffeine gel. I sat down and put socks and my cycling shoes on. Grabbed my spare tube and CO2 and put it in my back tri suit pocket. Trotted out of TI feeling pretty good.

Need to transition without socks. Practice with shoes already clipped into pedals. Learn to mount bike on the run. Ranked 47 / 95 This is killing me. I need to dedicate some time just to T1.

I felt fast and passed a lot of riders (mostly due to the poor swim - lots of riders to pass). I was comfortable and moving fast. I could have pushed harder but needed to save it for the run. Heart rate monitor was not functioning correctly and I was not sure of my exertion level.

Pushed a little harder. Know my body better during a race so that I can better perceive my exertion.

It got HOT really quick once I stepped off of the bike. I dismounted fine (fine for me - stopped the bike unclipped.) Ran to the transition. There were people clapping and cheering. Made you run a little better / faster. Racked the bike. Switched shoes. Ate a caffeine gel and took off. Forgot to take my bike spare kit out of my tri suit pocket and ran back to my bike and dropped it off. Cost me maybe 20 seconds.

Need to store bike related stuff on the bike and not on my person. Need to work on mounts / dismounts. Ranked 56 / 95 This is killing me. I need to dedicate some time just to T2.

Heart rate monitor was not working very well. Was reading a sky high heart rate that did not fluctuate. The heat and humidity at this point were oppressive. Very hot, wet and sticky. Paced myself well for the first mile and then I got a little hot. I passed quite a few runners (still from the bad swim I imagine). I fell in place behind someone running a decent pace to collect myself and get my run back on. Someone running from the other direction yelled at the person right in front of me that she was the 3rd female overall. I knew I was doing fairly well at that point. After I regained my composure I passed her at about mile 2 1/2. I was feeling strong at this point and should have pushed harder. I was chasing runners down - although slowly. I got to a point where I felt all alone. No one coming up on me and no one to pass. At the 4 mile marker I knew I still had gas in the tank and pushed harder. That last mile (almost a mile - .97 or something) clicked off at a low 6 minute / mile pace. The water stations at every mile helped a lot with the pacing and the water / Gatorade sure did not hurt.

Should have run harder and more consistent. I need to work on pacing. I had ran a 5k a few weeks back where I went to strong and died the last 2 miles. My splits of that 5k were something like 6:00 / 6:30 / 7:10 – for a total of 20:06 (don't go doing the math - these are from memory and are no better than guesses at this point). Anyway, I was scared of dying in a ~5 mile run at the end of a tough swim and good bike. I played it too conservatively. The bricks in training really helped. Very little discomfort going from bile to run.

Grabbed a drink of water and soaked up the sites and sounds. I love the race environment. I had spotted some facilities in the camp ground section during the run. I grabbed my change of clothes and walked over and took a shower. I was soaked to the core with sweat and grime. My shoes were soaking wet with sweat and grime. A little later in the food area someone asked me if I was a spectator or if I had raced. I said that I had raced. They looked at me and said I looked so refreshed. I told them that I was not sure if I was supposed to shower in he camp ground. He said that everyone really should shower and that only the smart ones find the showers - I think that he was a little jealous.


Comfort in open water. Holding back in the bike and run for fear of having to walk the run. Poor transistions.


This was a well run event. There was no big expo. The food was just average - although there were red beans and rice (I guess for the New Orleans flair). The volunteers were great and the police force was fantastic. I really enjoyed this race.