The swim went great until the very end. The lake has seaweed and near the end of the race I started swimming through it. For some reason, it caused me to have a panic attack. I tried to switch from freestyle to backstroke, but when I stopped and my feet went down, I was up to my theighs in weed which just made my breathing worse. I was freaking out and needed someone to help me wave down a kayak. He had to tell me 3 times to lay on my back and float before my brain actually processed it. When the kayak got there, I was doing some pretty heavy hyper-ventilating. It took me a good 2 or 3 minutes before I could get my breathing back to normal...then I finished the race without issues.

I would practice swimming in weeds. I know that it's no big deal, I just need to get used to it.

I don't know why my time was so long, but it seemed to go well.

Nothing.

I stopped at the 5 mi mark to help a dude with a flat, so that slowed me down a bit. Other than that, I don't think I pushed quite hard enough during the bike. But it was a fine balance since I wasn't in very good shape this year. But then again, it was only a 4 mile run.

Push a little harder on the bike.
I don't know if I should have drank less or not, but I had to pee from about the 15 mile mark on. It did slow me down.

This was one of my fastest transitions ever, but that's because the potties were outside of the transition area.

Nothing.

I had to pee at the start, so that added about a minute to my time. Other than that, I did pretty well. At the turnaround, I saw that John was only about 2 minutes behind me (and he started 5 min after me), so I picked up the pace.

Push myself a little harder. Luckily I saw John and that was my inspiration to push a little harder - but I shouldn't need that.
I noticed in my race pictures that my knees were close to each other, so I think that means I need to strengthen my legs more.

Hung out with the neighbors. It was nice to chill with all of the families.


Lack of training and lack of internal drive to push harder. I don't know why I wasn't pushing it very hard, especially on the bike.


I liked the race course except for the seawead and algea in the lake. It was great to have a weekend in Steamboat with our neighbors.