Well, I finally experienced a true freak out (more on that later). I made many many mistakes on this swim. It was only my 2nd OWS, and after the Wendy's tri, I felt like I had it licked. First off, it was a run in start. I positioned myself at the very front of the group (bad move). I'm not really sure why I did this. Once we were off and running, and as soon as I went horizontal and began swimming, I had no less that 5 or 6 people in a row swimming over top of me. I took a couple of kicks too. Now, this was totally my fault for my position choice. About 1/2 way through, I began to get the panic feeling. It kept building and building until I simply couldn't swim anymore. I had to come up and doggie paddle for about 3 minutes. At one point, I seriously considered waving over one of the chicks on the kayak. Everytime I felt like I had regained my composure, it hit me again as I would put my face back in the water. After about 4 minutes or so, I was able to get back in the game and finished the swim. My wetsuit also seemed to play a role in this too. I could feel the tightness around my neck and it spooked me even more. Wow, what a mess that was!!!!!!!

Have a solid game plan like I did during Wendy's. Place myself in the rear of my AG and swim my race at my pace, without worrying about how fast the guy/gal next to me is swimming.

My wetsuit is very hard to get off. I can get the top part off while running to transition, but getting my legs out is a different story. This contributed to a lenghthy stay in T1

Train more on removing the wetsuit, or not wear it when not real necessary

This is a new PR for me as far as pace goes. I beat my Wendys pace by .2. I'll take any improvement I can get. I needed that after my horrible swim. The bike made me feel like I was back in it.

Just continue to ride.

I had a little trouble racking my bike. The guy next to me came in first and decided to use my space, so I had to take the time to gently move his bike over to make room for mine. No biggie though. My shoes went on fast and I was off and running.

Not much really

I ran faster than I thought I would. The cool temps made it easy. I feel I could have pushed myself a lot harder on the run and got a better time.

Run more

The mental aspect of the swim kind of spoiled my whole race.


HFP always does a great job in my opinion. Although I had a decent bike and run, the swim killed it for me. But, i'm gonna get right back in next week at the Delaware Lake tri. That's the only way to do it. I know what I need to work on and next week will be a better race.