The swim really caught me by surprise. I am a fairly strong swimmer. I did complete 1 OWS prior to race day but I was not prepared for the onslaught of 200+ people entering the water at the same time. I panicked for the first 30-45 seconds. But once I got near the first bouy to turn and swim parallel to shore I settled down and cranked up the speed. Drafting wasn't terribly great because I was doing more passing than following. However my sighting was awesome for my first tri. I was spot on every time and this race helped me a ton.

Push harder. I really should have swam this much harder than I did. Looking at my time I should of had a least a minute or so off of that. I also need to work on getting over the panic of the swim start. I was not prepared at all for that feeling.

The hill leading to T1 was killer. I read about it but never really thought about it until race morning. I stopped to walk just for a moment toward to top of the hill and restarted running once I hit level ground. Other than that,T1 went almost as practiced. The only catch was as I said earlier, we were super cramped which meant I could not set up next to my bike on the same side that I would unrack from. Luckily for me I was on the end so I just made it work. I was also on the rack with a ton of mountain bikes which I think was part of the issue was well.

I also injured myself coming out of transition trying to say Hi to a volunteer. Yeah you live and you learn but I was just really happy to recognize her and wasn't going to not say hi.

I bought a tri suit this weekend so T1 should be must shorter next time around. No putting on a jersey and shorts.

Oh and also no injuries! :)

While I thought my hill work stunk prior to this race, I quickly found out that I was a bit more prepared than I had thought. I got to practice "On Your Left" a bunch of times. Overall for me this was a phenomenal ride. I averaged right at 15MPH (Bike computer read 19.31 at the end of the course) which is only the second time that has ever happened for me. The first time being just the Wednesday before on a 26 miler.

I did learn that I need to work on hills more and using my drops. Grabbing my water bottle continues to be something I am working on as my hands are so small that I can't really squeeze my bottle well to get liquid to come out.

More hill work and just more time in the saddle overall. I expected a time of 1:20-1:25 so I couldn't be more pleased with my performance.

T2 went smooth. I had not practiced T2 with my running water bottle but decided to use that last minute so stuff I would normally do while running I ended up having to stand by my rack for until I could grab the bottle and go. It cost me probably 20 seconds in the long run but honestly I needed the water.

I need to work harder at cutting this time down. The running water bottle tripped me up because I didn't practice with it.

Looking at how I ranked in my age group in the other two sports as compared to running really lets me know that I have got to work on my running. Aside from that this was a good effort for me. My 5K PR is only 33 minutes so to have run 36 minutes after the bike and swim, I am ok with that. I didn't use a garmin so my running and walking was just at my own pace and as needed. I honestly tried to walk as little as possible.

I also took in some gatorade at the second aid station which I probably should have passed on. Luckily it did not cause me any issues during the race but afterwards my stomach was not liking it.

No walking. I really want to get to a point where walking is not a part of my running, especially at this distance.

Again as always, don't try anything new on race day. (Gatorade and water bottle for run)

I had three awesome spectators who found me immediately after finishing and took tons of pictures. I probably should have walked around some more but I was so excited to share my experience with them that cooling down didn't sound like fun. I ate a burrito, banana and some more gatorade. Again the gatorade was not a good idea for me. I am going to stick with Heed in the future.


3 things would make my performance better: OWS practice, Hill training on the bike and my quality run training. While I did good, those are the three things that prevented me from being great.


I really enjoyed this race and it was the best pic for my first triathlon. I am not ready to tackle what is remaining of the season. This is probably a race I will not return to but overall it was a great event.