Well I have nothing to really compare this to since it was my first "group" ows. The good news is that I allowed myself an estimated 12-13 minutes to complete, so I came under my goal there. The other good news is that can I lop off quite a bit of time next time by simply avoiding a few things.

1. Stopping to apologize everytime I make contact with someoone. Yes, doing this will slow you down, and no, noone else stopped to receive my apologies anyways.

2. Not being squeamish about contact with others and learning how to sight. I guess thats three things.

Anyways that leaves the bad news with the swim which is simply the fact that I could have swam a lot faster if I had just gone for it!

See above

So I was feeling all hotshot about my fluid run up to the swim exit and quick transition. Grabbed my bike and decided to attempt the flying start, only to wobble out of bounds, cut off a bunch of people, and nearly fall. Sorry guys!

Practice the flying start more than twice.

Ahh the bike. The bane of my new-triathlon-hobby existence. (besides the swim!) Actually I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn't terrible on the bike with so little biking experience.

After I recovered from my rocky start and got going I was a little unsure about how hard to push. I decided that a 3-3 breathing pattern was about right and kept up that steady effort the whole way.

This is definitely an area where I can make some real improvements with more training! I was really nervous about the drafting rules and getting too close to people. Everyone was really bunched up on the hills and I passed a ton of people here. Overall, I was pretty happy with my split I figured I would be able to do somewhere around 20 average.

get some more months of biking under my belt.

This is where I lost about 10 places. Remember my wonderful rack position right beside the bike exit? Yeah, I couldn't find it. I ran my bike All the way to the other end of transition and frantically looked for my spot. Ended up losing a couple of minutes here. Again, the good news? An easy way to improve for next time. I saw one guy had a noodle taped to his spot. I seriously need to consider something like that.

I was a little bummed at this point bc I figured I had given up any chance of placing. Onwards and upwards though... to the fun part!

So I had wondered how biking and swimming would affect my running. I hoped I wouldn't be too much slower. I was only 31 secs off from my last open 5k run, which makes me think that I could destroy my old pr now.

I started out breathing pretty heavy ... like a 2-2 pattern which is a little harder than I like to Start a race. It didnt seem lie I could stay in the mid sixes And slow my breathing though so I just went with it.

Anways, I was frustrated after my transition so I decided to make a game out of how many people I could pass back. The heat and hills were harsh so everyone seemed to be going slow.

I counted through the mid thirties in terms of passes through the turnaround. I also got to see my hub going the other way to a fast finish as well as some other people from the tri club. I also passed our friend Brian (going the same way) and I tried to think of something clever to say but I was huffin and puffing too hard. I wanted to see if I could pass at least 50 people.

I was on number 62 coming into the last 500 yards. I could see one more girl ahead of me that I had a chance of passing so I tried to pick it up and passed her and another guy in the process. I heard her friends yelling for her and when I passed her someone said "you gotta stay with her!" I was afraid she was just on my shoulder so I was able to muster up a serious sprint to the finish with 64 total passes!

Nothing really. I was happy that I can run off the bike since I've only tried it once and it doesn't reduce me to a walk!

Had water, hung out with some other people from the tri club


Lack of experience and training. My husband and I got this crazy training bug and started biking and swimming at the beginning of this year! I think we can get a lot better with some more training. Anyways, its a lot of fun and thats what matters, right? I was more happy than anything that we *finally* did our first one!


I would definitely love to do this one again next year. Its close and the park is really beautiful.