I managed to get a pretty clear spot of water in the pool so I didn't have a lot of other people around me until about half way through the swim. it did get a little crazy with people walking and stoppiing. I let a few guys go in front of me, but passed several people. I still suck at swimming and at the end I felt like my arms were just dragging my body through the water. I often found myself forgetting to kick or just half-a$$ kicking. Really need to get a swim coach soon before these terrible habits set in. At least I didn't do any sidestroke, frog stroke like I had in the Tempe International. Better step it up for Nathan's though.

Get a swim coach and not forget to take off my race belt.

Bike to swim was also an easy transition. I thought I had remembered everything...shoes off, socks off, sunglasses down, helmet off, goggles in hand. Then as I quickly walked into the pool area, I realized I left my race belt on. Quickly took it off and threw it to the side and hopped in the pool.

Remember to take off my racebelt in the transition area.

The course is pretty decent, but the parts of the course that are on smaller roads got pretty crowded and some people were turning very wide and a little unpredictable. To pass on these parts I had to veer out of the 'coned' off area. The long, gradual downhill section was great and I tried to hammer it on that part of the course. 3 loops total and pretty fast.

I probably could have gained a lot of time it I would have hit the hill a little harder at the start of each loop, otherwise it all went pretty well and I didn't crash my bike like I did in training the week before.

The run to bike transition is really pretty easy. Toss on the cyclig shoes and the helmet and hit the road.

nothing. I imagine my total transition (including the run w/ bike throught transition) was about 1 minute to 1.5 minutes.

I started in wave 2 of the run and was in the middle of the pack. Everybody started on a standard sidewalk, so it was really crowded. I passed quite a few people on the side and in the rocks on the downhill leg. the second half of the run was a long, gradual uphill climb. I managed to stay pretty strong throughout the whole run. I'm normally a 10 minute/mile runner, so 8 min, 20 sec/mile is great for me. It helped being able to pace off of other people and having fresh legs.

Not much other than maybe push my way to the front of my wave for the race start.

Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035293&id=1125210883&l=b3ef7...