My navigation is always bad. I drift to the left. This is the first time I tried to compensate for that, and I did better than usual, but I still went too wide at a couple buoys. I know I need to work on this.

I had a lot more contact in the tri than the others I've done, and it was okay. Not at all as scary as I thought it would be.

I started to get cramps in my legs my the end of the swim. This has been happening to me on longer open water swims. It doesn't happen in the pool. I think I'll try to work on not pointing my toes, and hope that that helps.

The bike rack started collapsing when I took my bike off. I sort of holding it trying it to figure out how to get it back up, and a volunteer saw what was happening and ran over to fix it, so I could leave.

I felt discombobulated, but it went ok.

Pretty hilly course (they added a hilly section from the last race I did there). I would keep track of where I was by the big hills - the uphills (3 on each loop) and downhills (2 on each loop). The downhills were fun. I got up to 38.7mph on one downhill. On the next loop on that same downhill, I had a showdown with a squirrel who decided at the last minute not to run in front of my bike. I heard skidding from a bike behind me, but no crash.

I had an Cherry flavored e-gel at the start of the second loop, and the third loop felt the best to me.

I just finished the water in my bottle by the end of the bike course, so hydrating went better than usual for me.

Buy a road bike. I was pretty spent after the bike. I think doing an Olympic length course on a road or tri bike would make it a lot easier.

A woman that I had been going back and forth with on the last loop until I finally pulled ahead of her, complimented me on my cycling, and said she was upset to have spent thousands of dollars on a race bike only to get passed by a mountain bike.

I put on socks for the run.

Hilly course. Hot, hot, hot. It was 80 by the time I was running. That's way hotter than I'm used to running (I train in the early morning), and breathing in hot air made me feel like I wasn't getting any oxygen at all. I had a lot of negative thoughts for the whole run. I kept thinking, "I can't do this." But, I kept on trying to talk myself into just keeping going, and told myself that if I felt really bad (after that next big tree or at the top of that hill) then I could walk, but other than a brief walk through the aid station at mile 2, I ran the whole way, albeit slowly.

There was a snake on the running path. ACK!

Train for running in heat.

Control the negative thoughts.

I must have looked pretty bad. Another racer told me to sit down and offered to bring me some food and water.


I had a good time. The volunteers were great.

In the event description, the run was supposed to be 8k, and I found out by looking at the map at registration that it had been changed to a 5k. I was happy about that, knowing that it was going to be hot.

The awards ceremony at the end took forever. The race director was interviewing a lot of people. But, the few people that stayed until after it was over got to participate in the giveaway, and there were some great prizes. I GOT A FREE WETSUIT, which is great because I'm beginning to under-grow mine, and it will help motivate me to lose some more weight.

This was the second in a series of 3 tris. The next one will be a 1.5k/40k/10k. I probably could have done that distance, but I can't say that for sure. The run was tough for me. I need to work on my endurance. More biking - so that I can feel less wiped out afterwards and running in heat.