Ok, this was only my 2nd OW swim ever! And the first time I had done it with other people. Once in my swim rhythm, I did good, but that didn't happen too often. I started at the back of my group thinking I would be a slower one. The problem was I kept catching up to the swimmers in front of me and had no way to get around them. I would hit their feet then they would all slow down, then I would have to check up to keep from running over them. I probably stopped my forward momentum like this 10 times, which really slowed my time down a lot. On the back stretch I was finally able to get outside them and felt good.

Keep practicing the open water swims. Either try and start at the front of my group or to the outside where there are less swimmers.

Seemed like a pretty long run to get into transition area from swim. I was able to run out of the water and all the way to my bike. Put one sock on upside down at first, but only took a few seconds to change it.

Get triathlon specific bike shoes to speed up the transitions on and off the bike.

The bike leg was by far my best leg of this race. I felt really good and was passing a lot of people. I only counted about 5-6 people that passed me.

Not a whole lot I would change. Get triathlon specific shoes to save some time on transitions. Just train some more and work on picking my speed up.

I was impressed with my transition. Had only practiced it once and it went almost as smoothly as I could have hoped.

Get some elastic shoe laces (I bought some but did not want to experiment with them on race day). I just pre-tied my shoes and pulled them on (it worked but was a little tough with the wet socks). Fix my race belt (i put it on upside down!), and figure out how to keep the number from bunching up and keeping it visible.

Not my strongest suit. Gotta side stitch for about the first mile of the run, but was able to get rid of it by focusing on my breathing. Grabbed water at 2 stations and just poured it on me, which felt very good as it had already warmed up quite a bit by this time (9a). I thought I was running pretty slow, but I am used to running hills, and this course was perfectly flat, so I think my time reflected that.

Do more bike/run bricks to get my body more used to it. Work on building up my running speed.

More stretching and just walking around.


My training and my positioning during the swim.


There were only 2 water stations for the entire race (both on the run). I wouldn't have used it, but would've been nice to see one on the bike course. Not really much going on after the race. Snacks only consisted of water/gatorade, popsicles, crackers, and bananas. At least that is all I saw. Would've liked to have seen more kayakers on the water. This is my first race so I really can't compare, but the course was really well laid out and a fun route. I will definitely try to do it again next year.