Loved the pool swim. My only other experience is an open water swim that really freaked me out. Plus, it was really fun to see people in the water. The guy two lanes over seemed to be walking in the water- I could see his legs hanging down to the bottow of the pool. The woman in another lane was breast-stroking and going as fast as my freestyle.

T1 seemed pretty easy. I just put on my helmet, sunglasses, threw some gels in my pocket, and went.

Once I got on the course, I realized that everyone else seemed to have put something warmer on at T1. Wearing my tank and shorts did feel a bit chilly at first, but I was so nervous about the bike course, that I didnt' pay much attention to cold arms.

Hills, hills, hills. I thought I had done a good job of riding hills near my house, but I was not prepared for the number, steepness, or length of these hills. Several times I realized I was already in granny gear and was just going to have to push through it. I kept thinking, "just keep spinning, just keep spinning". Took one wrong turn in the park so I had to climb back up the hill and ask another racer which way we were supposed to go. I haven't put my bike computer on my new bike, so it was hard to gauge how far I had gone. When I finally came out of the park, I was ecstatic, because I knew that it would literally all be downhill from there.

I haven't figured out how to drink and ride at the same time, so I did make 1 stop and ate a gel and washed it down.

practice hills
mount bike computer
learn to go faster
learn to ride clipless (got the shoes and pedals, just chicken to use them)

threw on my hat and went. They had a drink station set up just past T2, so I stopped, ate another gel and drank a cup of water. I did try to talk with gel in my mouth and it came out completely unintelligable.

I was so happy that I had survived the bike, I figured a 3.1 mile run was nothing. My legs felt fine from the get-go. I even passed a runner (and got passed by several). There was only 1 drink station- I could have used more to drink. I was really happy I didn't have to stop and walk.

Push myself a bit harder- I think I probably could have gone a bit faster.

Ate my powerbar and a banana. Drank lots of water and some gatorade. One nice thing about having it based at the Y is that I got to take a shower and change back into real clothes before the awards ceremony.


Inexperience with hills, bike handling


I overheard someone else talk about taking the same wrong turn on the bike course- that should have been better marked. At the pre-race meeting they did show a DVD of the course and I thought that was really helpful.