Guessing on the time.

I registered for this race after seeing the course online. I thought it was a catastrophe-in-waiting and I didn't want to miss the carnage. I guess the race director figured it out too because the course changed considerably...and became a realistic swim instead of the mass suicide he had originally planned.

We started by the old diver's ramp...they had everyone swim out there and wait for the race start which was delayed by FIFTEEN minutes. I was all toasty warm while all the folks around me were shivering and blue. People tried getting out onto the diver's ramp, but kept sliding on the algae and gave up. I was SOOOOOOOOOO happy I didn't cave to peer pressure and wore my wetsuit!!

The swim was a mass-start. We swam to the other end of the run, then turned. When the run narrowed, the flow was KICKING. I was dreading to have to swim back upstream through that....but it turned out that section was shallow enough to stand in. YAY.

Got out of the water at the same time as a certain tri coach...so I felt very happy with my swim.

Overall, this was probably the best swim course I've had in any race. There was so much to look at while swimming, perfect visibility (until people started walking and mucking it up). I thought I'd hate it because its a boring place to dive, but it was a refreshing respite from the tannic lakes that I'm used to in races.

Yucky large gravel, opted to wear shoes.

It was 2 loops with some sloping hills. It was lots of fun and I had a blast interacting with folks and cheering on the mountain bikers.

Missed one of the turn-arounds and had to double-back a bit.

Had a gen on the second loop...this was the perfect nutrition for a sprint...one gel before the race, one during.

Pay closer attention to the turn.

The run was WAAAAY short. I wonder if they had meant for us to do 2 loops or something different. It was more than a mile short. The first 1/3 mile was through the parking lot of WW, then we went into the 'woods'. It looked okay for another quarter mile until it turned into hell. Welcome 16 min mile pace...walking uphill through a construction mound. Ran sub-12 back when we got back to the pavement....but it was the WORST run course I've seen. EVER.

Sign up as a relay?

Collected my 1st place Athena hardware. Shh...don't ask how many Athenas were racing.


For being a super extremely low-budget race, it was well done. I would have paid a little more to use a real timing chip, but I can do without some of the frills of a bigger race. This was a great time, and I'd do it again if its repeated.

Next time, I'd make sure to have my lap watch as the results that were posted are totally ridiculous. They're not even CLOSE, they don't have people in the right order, but I'm happy to report through some miracle of time-travel that must have happened during the race, I now have PROOF that I can run 4 min per mile faster than I really can!