Pretty pleased with this, I didn't run thru the thigh deep water as I didn't see the need to exert myself that early. I walked for about 90 seconds and once I started swimming I was at best 10 yards behind the leaders, so walking in the shallows didn't hurt. The bouys were fairly easy to see although the flattened triangle of the course did make it hard to know which one you were aiming for. I was the 12th woman out of the water and felt like I had warmed up nicely.

I'm listed in the AG as first, but there is a woman missing, I outkicked her at the end of hte run, but her swim was a minute faster.

I suppose I should swim harder.

I'm just slow and making sure I had sun screen on and my stuff in a bag for collection took me longer. I have never used sunscreen during a race but after my most recent dermatological visit, I've been given the clear and direct instruction to stay out of the sun or put sun screen on. My spots are bad!!

Even when I get to 20mph, I'm one of the slowest!! I very consciously stayed in my small ring, even when I could have hammered with the wind at my back. My previous experience with pushing the pace met a bad run, the thought that there is no such thing as a good bike and a bad run stayed with me. I stayed constant and comfortable. Also, given that this has been my biggest IM training week so far, I wanted to work hard but comfortably hard, not sprint hard.

Again, the missing woman bumps me to 8th, her bike was 6+ minutes faster.

NOthing much to say...

Why I put my race belt on in T2 is beyond me, I never do that and could easily have 5-10 seconds back. Combined with a slightly harder swim and a little push on the bike, I'm looking at a minute, maybe more!!

The beginning and end of the loops were hot and exposed, but the trail part was cool. My first mile (the only one with a marker!) was 7:45 and my first thought was that there was no good reason to run that hard and eased up for the first loop. I stayed comfortable for the beginning of the second loop and then pushed for the last mile+. I passed people the whole time, and at the end caught the first woman I saw all day in my age group, she's the one who is missing from the age group lists but is 20 seconds after me in the overall list. I did out kick her, something I'm usually bad at, she didn't even chase me.

See, no such thing as a good bike and bad run.

Stood in line for water. Really, you must be kidding me. Its hot and you set up the finish in a place with no shade and there aren't even water bottles to hand people at the finish. And the post race food? Vending machine snacks and one slice of pizza per person. I paid close to $70 for this? I've been to smaller and less expensive races that were nicer to me and gave me more for my money.


Hard workouts during the week.


This is my first race since moving here, and I'm really disappointed. The volunteers are terse, the amenities are minimal for the money, and the information is inaccurate/changing/unavailable. For a race that required no police presence or closed streets with 650+ participants, I'm not sure what happened to my money. My Tshirt is probably the poorest quality race shirt I've recieved in years, that log jam for water post race, the bag that wasn't big enough to hold gear...It wasn't bad, just sort of startling, especially the part where I was snipped at by two different volunteers for doing nothing more than asking a question (chip table and gear bag return). Was this a particularly stressful event for 3D? The gentlemen doing the announcing was less than pleasant. At the same time, athletes weren't listening. Many people trying to get their gear out of T2 before they were supposed to. HOwever, 3D could solve that by actually posting volunteers at the entrances. No one ever checked my number to see that I was taking my stuff, also something that concerned me.

I like racing, I suppose I've been spoiled by coming from a place with several companies that organize local events. They want to attract racers so they go over the top in making you feel good about picking their races. 3 Disciplines appears to have a monopoly, and maybe they don't need to do as much.