Swim was okay, but would have been far better with better training. The surprise was to see the line of buoys the whole way. That was awesome - too bad they were on my weaker side, but beggars can't be choosers!

The extra surprise was the seaweed that last about 1/4 of the way out. By far the worst experience I've had with that - especially when it ended up in my mouth!

Otherwise uneventful, didn't really bump into many people, and felt alright coming out of the water.

Train every once in a while.

Trouble with getting my suit off as usual, but at least I didn't fall over! The transition area was grass, and kind of wet, and on a slope, so I only lightly jogged with my bike to get out.

Practice!

Came out of transition, and got my breath faster than normal and settled right into aero (probably because of the slow transition!). Of course I was happy about this, because almost right away there were two photographers! LOL! (See below).

First mile went good, but then the hills started. I stayed in my seat too long because I forgot the layout of them. I thought I was coming up to the crest, but then a new one started. I finally stood up, but by then my legs were pretty well fried - and only 2.5 miles into the ride!

I pushed a bit and coasted down the backside of that first set, even though I could have pedaled it for more speed. At that point, I even said to myself "I don't care, I just need to relax a bit". It kind of went on like that for most of the rest of the way.

After the turnaround saw my friend, and I was happy to see he was having a good time. Also happy that I knew he had no chance to catch me - he kicked my ass during the Pgh 1/2 Marathon! LOL!

Took a gel with about 3 miles to go as part of my strategy of not really trying.... It was a poor section to have the gel in since I was missing out on getting up some good speed here.
I could have pushed this much harder, but got caught up behind a number of others. I even wimped out on the downhill coming back. I got up to 40 mph, and wasn't real comfortable at that speed, especially since I would have been passing people, so rode the brake off and on. Then finally pushed harder for the last mile.

Great farmland scenery - lots of fields, cows, and even Amish working on a barn!

Work on more hills. I've been doing more rolling hills during training, and wasn't prepared as well as I should have been for the 200 footers...

Also get more comfortable at higher speeds. Overall costed myself a couple of minutes on this course.

Decent. No complaints here.

Just work on overall speed

This has become such a weak point for me. Two years ago I did the 5k run portions a full 4 minutes faster, so I'm getting kind of annoyed at this.

Right before the start, they announced that the turn around point would be at a different point than last year. Since this was my first time here, I didn't think about that. However, the dumb thing was that I never saw where the finish line was. So I was still expecting about a 3.5 mile run, then as I rounded a bend and thought the finish was about 1/2 mile away, it was suddenly right in front of me! LOL!

But that meant I didn't really give much of a kick at the end, and had too much left in me. That would have saved some time, but wouldn't have made a difference in the age group placing.

Do more speed work.

Jogged back out on the course and cheered in my friend to his finish. (He ended up 6th in our age group).

Walked around, had some fruit and drinks. Then eventually dug into an awesome display of cookies and brownies!


Overall training - or lack thereof.

Need to get the weight off!

Now!


Very well organized. This group really cares about the people racing, and they come out in full force to help. The timing is not done by chips, but by volunteers shouting out your race number as you pass! Worked just as well for a small race like this.

Very good race and tuneup, and I highly recommend it for anyone in the area.