Standing in line waiting for the swim start, I had some great conversations with the people around me. Most were there because they expected to have a similar swim time to mine so they were of similar ability. There was one lady, Denise, who had completed the tri in Chattanooga dead last. Her time was over 5 hours while I finished in 3:44. She had such a great attitude for being so slow but was overjoyed at being able to do them at all.

I learned a lot about open water swimming today. Unfortunately, I didn't learn it quickly enough. The swim start was a time trial start. We were to jump in feet first one swimmer after another. I remember thinking as another swimmer jumped in how I recalled that if you bend you leg a little when you jumped in, it kept you from going too far under water. As soon as I had that thought, it went straight out of my head. I jumped in and went down about 20 feet, well, probably not that far, but it felt pretty deep. The only open water swim experience I've had has been in the lake and one river swim that was with the current only. I'd read prior to today that the Corp of Engineers would be controlling the water flow through the dams to insure low current so I really did not have much thoughts of current. I noticed that one guy was swimming frog style but was passing me. I know, I'm very slow. I initially followed all the other green caps to the next bridge where I know the first turn was. When I got to the bridge, most of the other swimmers had cleared out around me. I realized that the next buoy was in the middle of the river and I was not making any progress toward it. More current than I thought, but I couldn't feel it just couldn't make much progress. I finally got around the buoy and started the downstream portion. Everything felt ok here and I just swam and tried not to think about anything else. At the next turn buoy, the guy in the boat was telling me to dig in harder than I felt I needed to because the current was pulling people off course. So dig in I did. When I finally started back upstream, I could not make any progress. This is where I started losing my focus. I could see the end but I couldn't make any progress toward it. Even feet from the ladder took much longer than I could tolerate. Folks from the short course were finishing up and vying for the same ladder. They were all very gracious and seemed to make way for me to take it first but when I grabbed it, I still had to fight the current to get around to the front of it. Finally got out and was never so glad.

The run from the swim was pretty long but I still took longer than I should have.

The ride out was a gradual uphill, more like rolling with more up than down. About 2/3 of the way before the turn around, there was a decent downhill. After the turnaround, there was an initial climb but the rest was rollers which should have more of a downhill and much easier, but the wind picked up some and kept my pace down. The initial loop was pretty energizing as there were a lot of people on the couse, most on their second loop or those doing the short course. The second loop was pretty lonely. Very few people were on the course at this point. I also was really needing a bathroom and was keeping my eye on the side of the road for a quick pit stop. Nothing seemed sheltered enough to risk so I was pretty destressed the last 25% of the ride. Plus, the wind picked up even more on the last ride back in. I got back to transition and my friend was at the dismount line directing racers. I told her I really needed to go to the porta-potties so she held my bike while I took a few minutes extra before crossing the timing mat.

I couldn't determine which way to head out for the run, so I went back to the bike entrance to ask a volunteer. He pointed to an area and when I went there, I was told I need to go back down the aisle to run out along the back edge to go out this exit. Huh? Oh well, I should have paid attention. The volunteers seemed to have lost interest at this point, but I was pretty far in the back so I couldn't blame them.

Once I started over the pedestrian bridge, I knew why I worried about the run. I knew that bridge was going to be steep and I was not disappointed. Good thing was that it was relatively short. Bad thing was I knew I was going to have to do it again. This first loop was nothing like the first loop on the bike. Almost every one was through and very few were still running. I kept plodding away, pushing uphill on 1st Ave, enjoying the downhill of 2nd Ave and pushing uphill again on 3rd Ave. When I was getting to the end of the first loop, I passed someone walking away from the race area. She was trying to encourage me by saying I was almost through. I said not really and she said oh no, really, you are almost through and I had to say that no, this was only my first loop and I still had another to run. So off on the second loop I went. Up the steep bridge and back around the ups and downs of the downtown roads. I had several friends waiting for me at the finish line so I had some nice pictures with a smile on my face. The only thing I could say was OMG, that was really hard.

Walked around the finish area, got a bite to eat and watched the awards be given out. Thanks to my friend, Devon, who helped me get everything I needed. I also ran into Denise again. Her race had not gone as well as she had wanted. She was taking longer to complete the swim course than the race officials thought would afford her enough time to completed the rest of the couse before the time cutoff. They made her drop back into the sprint race. She was pretty frustrated with that but understood they had a race to run.

After leaving the race, I had a really hard time with how this race turned out. I didn't have all of my splits, but I knew my swim was close to an hour and my bike and run pace was higher than in Chattanooga. I kept thinking about how hard this one seemed to have been. I was really down about it and stayed that way for several days. A friend was looking at the online results and asked why all my splits weren't posted. I think they had a computer problem and several bike and run splits were missing. I relayed this to him but noted that it really didn't matter because they were pretty bad. He reminded me that no matter how bad my times were the were better than all those who never tried to complete such an adventure. I feel better about it now and look at this race as the goal to beat for next year.