Wasnt' nervous at all for the swim. Only thing was that when I went to zip up, my wetsuit felt a bit different for some reason. That reason would be that I grabbed Mike's at 10PM last night while packing my bag. It actually felt really good in the water. I wore my rashguard underneath just to prevent chaffing. I usually do that in races. Dunno where my wave went but for a while I was swimming w/ pink caps then there were none around me. There were plenty of them ahead of me in the start but it seemed like the faster ones just flew by me and out of sight. Caught up w/ a bunch of women from the wave before. Sighted pretty well for a change. Stuck with the ol every 5th stroke and it mostly worked.

Bring my wetsuit instead.

Seems as though I had a little party in T1. Could not for the life of me get my wetsuit off! Sat and tugged and pulled forever!!! Finally got it off, shoes on, running along w/ bike when I notice a few folks kinda staring at me funny. Damn. Forgot to take rashguard off. Thanks to the folks for staring! Took it off and threw it at the end of a rack on the way out.

Take off rashguard, have easier time w/ wetsuit.

Bike seemed like there was a bit of a headwind for a lot of the time. I was familiar w/ most of the course from doing the sprint 2x. Mostly flat w/ a few rollers. Surprisingly, the course had thinned out by the time I got on it. I really tried to push the bike as much as possible b/c of the bike disaster in Rhode Island. Wanted to know where my bike fitness was. I felt great on the bike and when I felt myself easing off, I was able to give a little more and get back where I wanted to be. Had 2 gels, a bottle of water and one of gatorade and could have used more to drink. It was getting pretty hot out there. Saw someone w/ BT gear on and gave a shout out but sorry, don't know who you were! Saw the father pushing his son - reminded me of Team Hoyt. What a great motivator!

Not much. Pushed when I could. Im happy w/ my bike split.

La, la, la, la...ran in, grabbed rashguard off the ground, meandered around trying to find rack. Looked some more. A-ha. There it is. Sat down and put some warm and semi gooey body glide on my feeties before the socks. Don't want any blisters! Race belt, gu, visor and we're off. Finally.

Not get lost.

Uggh. As always, I start w/ high expectations for the run w/ a definite plan. It didn't quite work. I was very hot and thirsty getting off the bike. The good news is, there are plenty of water stations along the way and I took full advantage of all of them. I wound up walking a bit just to get my HR down, then b/c it was too hot, then b/c my feet were getting blisters. Around mile 4.5 I was breathing really hard on the run, not barely moving and all I did was focus on my breathing pattern and was able to get it under control. It was kind of odd how much it helped by just relaxing and breathing 1,2,1,2,1,2 instead of gasping for breath. I was able to run more during the end than in the beginning.

Stick to the plan!

AAAHHHHH They had a shower tent! Heaven! Great call by CGI! Woohoo!!!! Went from being hot and miserable to chilly and wonderful :) Grabbed some food and soda and sat by myself for a bit. Ran into Bob in the shower - saw him out on the run course too. Nice race, Bob!
I had looked up the top Athena times from last year and thought I may have made the top 3. Once Larry said "Wow, we've got some blazing athena times this year" I knew I was out! Oh, well. I wanted to go sub 3 which I did. This is a challenging distance for me but I really liked it!


CGI puts on a great race. It's getting very big and popular which makes the Oly folks wait around a long time before we swim. Lots of fun, great volunteers, cool vibes and tunes while waiting, pretty venue. Only negative is the late start. Maybe we could have a BT wave and we could all get a priority start being that CGI's a sponsor here :)