No watch on board, so I had no idea of how well I was doing until it was all over. Actually, I wasn't really doing well....it must have been short. Heavy fog at the start made this the spookiest swim of all time. From the water's edge, you couldn't see the end of the buoys...so it looked like you were going to swim to the ends of the earth. In the water, you couldn't see the shore, or even that far ahead. Hubby said he saw a couple of rescues happen during his swim, but mine was uneventful. Tried a new thing where when I switch to breast-stroke, I only do it for 10 breaths, then force myself back to freestyle. Had a few bursts where I felt super-fast and strong....of course, this always means I'm headed off course! Also, when the wave behind caught up, I was obsessed with checking out every shirtless guy for a mustache....not wanting to let my husband pass me on the swim. Thankfully, I got out of the water ahead of him!

45 min is way faster than I expected to be for a fresh water non-wetsuit swim. I suspect the course was short, and not that I've improved much.

Yay me...I jogged the whole way to transition! I think this is a first...and not like you can tell from my time or anything. It was a long, long way.

Learn a flying mount. As long as we had to go, doing this in bike shoes was miserable.

A beautiful day....its overcast, there's barely any wind! Due to a rider self-control malfunction, my bike weight is about 12 pounds heavier than St. A's and I could feel the difference . . . but my plan was to go all out on the bike, knowing that with my sore hip, I'd probably walk the whole run.

There were marshals all over the place, and tons of people with flat tires. Kept looking out for hubby and finally found him...only a few miles behind me! Good motivation to keep hustling. Drank all my water and had 2 gels on the bike.

Took feet out of shoes just in time...I had like 3 seconds until dismount!

Got off the bike and felt just like I do when I step out of the water after a long dive....GRAVITY SUCKS! My knee felt like it wouldn't bend and my hip was screaming at me. Walked the rest of the way back into transition. Sat down to put on my socks and then decided to take off my wet shirt and put on a shirt to run in. Stuffed a gel in my pocket and grabbed my bottle of accelerade and set off.

Remember to take the Endurolytes I brought.

Jogged out of transition and wondered how I still feel good...maybe this wont be so bad? Felt pretty decent until we made the dreaded right turn into the grass. I had hoped that the "trail" section would be minimal, but it was about 1.5 miles. Surprisingly, my hip felt great on the grass section, but my spirit was broken. This sucks. Why couldn't they have at least BAGGED while they mowed? Saw hubby just after I turned...he looked terrible, but had made lots of progress, figured he would catch up soon enough.

Saw Melissa up ahead and worked like hell to catch up to her. Once there, I decided to hang with her for a while, got the good news that her husband was doing well and chatted about IMFL. She's racing in November and I'll be cheering REAL LOUD for her!! Stayed with her for about a mile or so, but then surged ahead to try and keep ahead of Mike. When I finished the first loop, I asked the volunteers for ice, then sat there for minutes trying to cram it into my warm accelerade bottle. In this time, Melissa caught back up and I shared my ice with her, then took off again. About 10 minutes later, I hear Mike behind me..and we walk through the grass together. He pipes out with "this isn't running, this is LAWN-MOWING!" Too funny. We stayed together for a while, but when we got back to the pavement, I encouraged him to go for it...I was going to take it easy. When he got a little ways ahead, I tried valiantly to catch back up, but he was moving even faster than before. I finished 1:30 after he did....he beat me by 4 minutes overall...YAY him!

Not sign up for shitty races with bad courses?

Got some BBQ! Yum! Though the baked beans were not so good to me afterwards. We rode our bikes back to the car...this was not at all the ordeal I thought it would be. If I ever do another race in Fort Wilderness, I'll never get a room there again...We stayed there for the 70.3 because I was afraid the bus/no bikes stuff would be a mess, but it was actually easier to stay off property than to stay on.

At the end of the race, Mike said some magic words, "honey, you were RIGHT! I'm so glad you talked me out of doing the 70.3 here next year." He also gave me tons more props for doing 13.1 miles in the weeds.


Didn't experience any of the negative things that I've heard about this race in years past. I'm sure this is a result of Philip LaHaye helping to organize/direct the race. The trail run sucked as much or even more than I thought it would, but it was fun. I'm glad I did it, not sure I'd do it again.

Overall, happy that we signed up.....didn't mind the high race fee as the proceeds go towards prostate cancer research. Since my father-in-law had great success in treating his prostate cancer with experimental proton radiation, it was good to support the cause.

It was hard to do this race and not think of Christine a lot. We had signed up for the HIM at this venue together, hung out pre-race and exchanged photos and stories while our husbands cheered us both on during the race less than 3 months ago. Its still unbelievable that she's gone.