Awful, awful, awful. Started out at the back of the pack and was doing ok for me. Right near the 1st buoy (about 50M out) my goggles filled up. Grabbed the buoy and straightened them out. Swam about 3 strokes and they filled up again. Went back to buoy to straighten out. About 2 more strokes and filling up again. Contemplated just throwing them into the lake but instead just flipped over to my back and started backstroking. Determined that I can't really do a backstroke as I was agonizingly slow. Periodically tried to go freestyle but all the water kept pouring into my goggles and I just couldn't swim at all that way.

Buy new goggles prior to my next race.

Had a good transition. Most of the suit was off by the time I arrived at my T1 place. Sat down to get off my feet and put my socks/shoes on. Popped on my helmet and glasses and took a few drinks of gatorade. I was only 10 feet from the end of transition so stepped out and ran the 30 or so feet to the mount line, jumped on and off I went.

Not much. Have something covering my glasses so they didn't get so wet.

It was raining the whole time so I hammered pretty hard on the straights but played it way conservative on the turns as there were a number of folks who wiped out ahead of me. I passed way more people than passed me (3 to 1 ratio I'd say) and was doing good. At the end of the 2nd loop at the last intersection someone said 2nd loop go left and that's all I heard. I took that to mean if you're on your 2nd loop but it evidently meant that way to your 2nd loop. After about 1 minute or so I slowed down, asked a guy I was passing what lap he was on and realized I screwed up somehow. Turned around and was somewhat disoriented on what to do even though I'm familiar with the town and the area we were biking in. Asked a guy in the Peddie School driveway if he knew which way I needed to go. He said straight ahead through the intersection to Wachovia (Transition was in it's parking area). Finally had some sense of urgency kick in and busted it all the way back to T2. Probably wasted about 3 to 3.5 minutes all told

Uh, not make a wrong turn.

Great transition for me. Jumped off right at the dismount line, ran to my rack. Dropped bike on rack, hat on, belt on, swim of gatorade and take off running.

Nothing.

Started off and felt some tightness in both calves so stayed within myself until they started to loosen up. Then I started just picking out a person ahead of me and catching them. This seemed to work well as before I knew it I could hear the crowd. At that point I started running harder and turned for home. Right before the finish line you had to go up 3 steps and then down 3 steps in the pouring rain. Probably not the best of ideas. Navigated them with one big leap both ways without incident.

As usual I could stand to run harder especially the 2nd half of the run when I have my heart rate well in control.

Grabbed my hat and a water and waited for my slower 2 friends to finish.


Goggles, swimming, weather and wrong turns.


1st time race with only about 3 months of set up time from race inception. The good news is the race organizer is actively soliciting feedback for improving the race. Since it's so close will probably give it another try next year.