Not a faet swimmer so wasn't suprised when everyone swam off and left me. Thought about picking up the pace a little, but didn't want to fry myself on the swim when the bike course loomed ahead so just took it easy. Liked the fact that all the buoys were tied onto a line under the water that you could site on all the way around the course. Kind of like following the lap line in the pool. No buoy sighting necessary.

One of these days I am going to learn to kick so I can go faster.

This 1/2 offers changing tents which is really nice but also makes the transition a little more laid back. I only had to get my wetsuit off and put my socks, shoes and bike shirt on in the tent then the helmet and sunglasses on at the bike. Not really sure what took so long. My wetsuit was a tad difficult to get off and had a hard time organizing the rebagging of my swim stuff.

Speed up a bit.

This bike course is pretty tough. Lots of hills. The first hill is one mile into the course and goes up for 4 miles. Some pretty nasty switch backs and such. Then there are several miles of rollers and then a little out and back. Passed a couple people on the first big climb and then saw the tail end of the mid pack on the out and back. Had to stop at the porta potti at the end of the out and back but thought for sure I would catch up to the back of the pack when I started out again. Rounded the corner and started a nice descent into Almira and did not see anyone. Thought I made a wrong turn or something. Got to Almira and started out the other side of town. Another nice climb. 8 miles at 3%ish. Finally started passing people on this hill. Got to the top and more rollers, yipee (not). Was very relieved when I got to hwy. 174 because I knew it was time to go down. Unfortunalely the gusty winds showed up and made the descent a little tricky. Had to hang onto the bike to keep from being blown all over the road. Got to the bottom and had to ride up one last hill and the last 2 miles into a nasty headwind. Pretty much cooked by now.

I feel like I handled the hills pretty well. Definately need to work on speeding up.

Had trouble racking the bike because there was now room in my designated spot. One of the volunteers finally shoved some of the other bikes out of the way so I could rack mine, Nice of her. We had to take our running gear into the changing tent to put it on too.

Did not feel like doing this run. The last couple miles on the bike pretty much did me in. Anyway started out and thought I will do one loop and if I feel like being done, I'm done. Decided early on to walk all the hills. Felt better about it after I got going. Ended up pretty much run/walking the whole thing. A few times I would pass people who were running up the hills while I was walking. Weird. I moved quickly through the first couple of aid stations but after that I started stopping and visiting with the volunteers while I got my water and gels and endurolytes. Spent a little too much time socializing on the second loop. Pretty happy that I finished. Really had to do the mind game to hang in there.

Keep moving forward!

Got done and met up with hubby who had done the oly. Did a little stretching and had some pasta and a mountain dew, picked up my gear and headed back to the room. Went for a little stroll around town in the evening and had dinner in the room.


I really didn't know how this race would go. I was 5 months practically to the day from a major 13 hour surgery so I've had to cram a lot of training into 3 months. Pretty happy to just be able to be out there competing.


Nice race. Very well run. Am looking forward to improving my time next year. Definately a challenging course but worth another try.