by far the most brutal swim start EVER! girls are nasty! :) i spent the first 200 meters kicking and punching...BACK. it was nuts. goggle got pushed into my left eye and it was all but closed the whole rest of the way. figured it wasn't leaking, so one eye to sight with was better than leaks, so didn't fix it.

meanwhile, back to the fight at 200 meters, i expended so much energy, that by the time i did get a clear lane i was starting to get that panicy feeling...so i thought...slow down, who cares about time, breathe and swim your swim. so i did. and there you have it. slow, but steady.

not sure. i don't want to position myself too far back b/c then i'm swimming extra. i guess it all comes down to GET BETTER AT SWIMMING SO YOU CAN JET OUT OF THERE THE FIRST 2-300 METERS AND NOT WORRY ABOUT THE KICKS AND PUNCHES. :)

ran from swim out. cap/goggles off. sunglasses/helmet/shoes on. i'm off. felt good about this. big improvement from disco last sunday!

learn how to do a flying mount with shoes still on bike. putting shoes on in transition costs me a little...i need to practice the flying mount, especially because it looks SO COOL when you do it right. (note jeepfleebs blog from last monday when he caught a guy doing the perfect flying mount, it looks so pretty!)

but quite honestly, i had one of the top 5 transitions in my ag, so i'm pleased.

i said it last week and i'll say it again. the good thing about being in the last wave of swimmers and being a notsostrong swimmer is that i get to pass a lot o' peeps on the bike. i did not get passed once this round. and i flew past everyone i passed. i felt great.

i went into this with the intention that i really really wanted to see 20 on my avg speed, so i pushed it. around mile 7 i started to feel heavy legs and wondered if i would have anything left for the run. i decided i didn't care. my goal was a 20 or higher on the bike and that's what i was going for. mission accomplished...but i ended up paying for it...see run! :)

nothing. i want to see 20's on the bike and i did today. it was great. so great in fact that i was 3rd in my ag. :) fun for me.

flying dismount rocked. in fact, i heard a couple people say "oh my gosh, did you see that? that was cool!" ha. it motivated me. helmet off, visor on, newtons sans socks on, ready to roll.

nada. again, improvement from last week.

for the record...this run course was NOT 3.1 miles like they said it was. it was 3.65 according to my garmin, which auto paused at least once through some trees, 3.7 according to staci's (thanks fleeb). distance corrected to reflect 3.65.

went too hard on bike. had major jelly legs. weird b/c last week i did 23 miles at 19mph and my run off the bike was awesome. in fact, the avg speed was 9:20 for 6.2 miles vs. 9:30 something for 3.65. hmph. anyway, major jelly legs. they would not work themselves out at all. after mile 1, they felt better, but certainly not great. argh.

i really wanted to see a pace in the 8's for this run. now, those of you who know me are probably saying "um jen, have you ever run in the 8's for even a stand alone 5k?" no. i haven't. but i felt so good last week at 9:20 for a 10k that i really thought i could push myself and at least see 8:59. i couldn't. i figured that out quickly and rather than get pissy, like i normally would have, i just kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept running. didn't walk but the ONE aid station they had and there i picked up both water and gatoraide. that helped. could've used another station or two though. anyway, was able to kick it the last 1/2 mile or so because i saw the carrot dangling in front of me (ie finish line and end in sight) :) i was ready to be done!!

side bar. i watched 3 people from my age group pass me on the run and couldn't do anything about it. i tried. really. i tried to keep up with them as they weren't "passing with authority" like tommy would say, but i just couldn't hang. i really need to get better at running. improvements are definitely being seen, but i'm ready for more.

not much more i could do. just ran the fastest i could at that point.

hung with craig, lori, cory and john until marcy came in. then hung with said group plus steve, marcy, tim and sabrina. big congrats to marcy who got 3rd in her ag and to sabrina who came in 1st in the aqua bike. well done gang! :)


self. it's always me. just gotta keep training.

positives:
i was 9th in my ag out of 73. not bad.
i was 58 out of 385, again, not bad.
i have to say, after looking at overall results, i'm much happier with my performance than i thought. i'm very pleased. just have to keep working on my swim and run. run is coming. swim will. i'm pleased! :)


this was great. lots of buzz. will do it again probably. only issues were on the run with a. the length of course not being what they said and b. only having one aid station. could've used one either at each mile, or two of them spread evenly. oh well...won't deter me from next year. loved the buzz.