They claimed the temp was 81, but I highly doubt that. Maybe right at the edge of the lake, but certainly not further out than 5'. I thought the course layout was a bit confusing - the final turn bouy was a small one for some reason and people didn't think that it was part of the course - seems to me they would have had it be a big one - everyone was questioning where we were supposed to swim to. The start out was deep water which wasn't so bad but didn't really have a chance to position ourselves since they didn't let us in the water until about 60 seconds before the gun.

The first turn bouy was weird. I kept sighting and seeing guys torsos sticking out of the water, wondering what the hell, till my hand hit the bottom of the lake and I realized everyone was standing up. I didn't much care for that - would have rather swam - too hard on the legs trying to run in the water, but was hard swimming with it being that shallow.

Wasn't prepared to swim without the wet suit. Since this was my first time racing without it, I just focused on sighting, staying loose, keeping a somewhat steady pace, and thinking of the Greyhound recovery drink I'd be having when this was all over.

Next time I'll try to bilateral breath more. I lose so much time when not wearing the wet suit (lose 20-30 seconds from my normal pace) that I need to try to get it back by breathing less - maybe not breathing at all would help!

I always put my socks and shoes on in T1. I don't care to ride without socks and figure whether I put them on here or in T2 makes no diff (I definitely can't run without socks) and I'm not sure I'd really save much time by trying to have my shoes already in the clips and trying to jump on. I'm pretty good at being able to get clipped in right away.

Nothing

The bike is definitely my strong point and good thing too since my swim is so flipping slow. Was hoping to hit an avg of 19mph, but it was just not to be. I was pretty winded coming out of T1 and towards the end I decided to save my legs a bit for the run.

Not sure I'd do anything different. Was a pretty decent ride.

I don't try to take my feet out of the shoes, I just unclip my left, come to a stop and unclip my right, jump off and run. Not sure I'd really save much time trying to do the flying thing. I did take a few seconds after putting my shoes on to stretch my quads - they were pretty tight from the ride. Also took a big swig of GE, then took off.

Was a better run than I thought. I never got to the point where I was real comfortable - I kept trying to push the pace thinking that I was going slow. Felt like I was at about a 9-9:30 pace - was really surprised that I did 8:29. This run also felt really long - thought it would never end.

Start at a faster pace right away. I've found that my overall pace is usually dictated by how fast I start. Its really hard for me to pick up the pace after I've been running for awhile. It seems to be a lot easier to keep a pace going.

Bottle of water and a hug from Trish then on to a very tasty recovery drink from the Greyhounds.


From what I'd heard, 3D races are all disorganized and have lots of problems. I'd have to say, though, that overall this one was pretty good. There were lots of volunteers and they had lots of drink stations, which was nice. The only thing that I think could have been improved was to have a pre-race meeting a lot sooner than just before we're about to go into the water. Also, they need to have maps of the course up for people to look at. There was mass confusion over the swim course that could have been easily fixed just by putting up a map.