ok, swim was a swim was a swim. and, fortunately this one involved almost zero sighting. because, well, i cannot sight. honestly, i swam the swim thinking "i hate swimming and i just want this to be done." soon enough, it was done. i wish ALL swims had crazy fast currents. and were a little short.

practice more swimming. i just did not put in the training for swimming like i did for the other sports. that and get over my fear of open water swimming so that i am not spending the whole swim praying that there are no snakes or gators coming up behind me.

also, of note, things are ranked average for the swim because it was "average" for me...however my "average" is below average overall :-/

long run with bike while wearing bike shoes to get out of transition. i HATE running in bike shoes.

learn to jump on to the bike. and...use the wetsuit strippers. in general i am never in a rush during transitions...just kind of enjoy my time. i should start trying to move a little faster.

well, poo. i wanted to get under 3 hours and i was so frickin close. if only i hadn't eaten asphalt out at about mile 18, I would have beaten 3 hours.

So, I am VERY familiar with this course, ridden the full course 5 or 6 times, and the first 15 and last 10 miles are a weekly occurrence for me. So, the first 15 miles I hammered the heck out of it, avging high 19s, and 20s. And, my legs were still feeling good, and I was feeling great. But--i wasn't consuming enough liquids, so I told myself, CHUG one of your water bottles before you hit the first bottle exchange and grab a gatorade. So, I chugged about a quarter of one of my bottles and then accidently dropped the bottle...so there goes 3/4 of a bottle of water. I thought, "Oh well, I'm coming up to the bottle exchange" I reach out to grab a gatorade, delish, grab it (yes!) and then I'm on my way...except not really. I grab it, and then overcorrect and fishtail out and eat pavement. The very nice army guys ran over to me as I pulling myself up, and the EMS guys were trying to check me out. I quickly told them...no! stop! I'm fine. And i jump on my bike to ride off and kind of stumble a little bit more: I've knocked my front wheel out of alignment so that it's rubbing against the brake. I fix and that and I'm off. Except, well, I'm not. I realize after not being able to peddle that my chain fell off too. Getting covered in grease, I put the chain back on, the EMS lets me wipe some of the grease on him (seriously, he told me too...) and I'm off for real. (I had wasted about 6 minutes of dead time fixing my bike and picking some gravel out of my back...)

At this point, I'm peeved because people I'd passed had repassed me while I was crashed AND I didn't get anything to drink. So now I'm down to my one bottle on my bike and I now know that I cannot manuvuere bottle exchanges. Soon after, we hit the fun parts (or so I tell myself), we get the hillier parts...and I tell myself over and over "this is the time do dig deep girl and show them who's boss" At about this time as well, I realize that i'm bleeding down my back...and know that I look tough. :) This leads to me feeling tougher and starting to pick people off again, one by one by one. But, I'm dehydrated and i don't have anything to drink.

Here comes bottle exchange # 2 at my least favorite part of the course: house creek (or so I think I remember it like that). Anyway, I pulled over and grabbed a bottle of water. Chugged it in like one gulp, and then continued to move. Stopping for 30 seconds at a bottle exchange to get my bottle while stationary turned out to be a far better plan than catching a bottle on the bike and crashing.

At this point, I see a guy in a purple jersey whiz by...it's Randy! I see him and think, ok, you can keep up with him, you do every Wednesday...so I jump on the bike and get going after Randy. For the last twenty miles, I hung on to Randy--trying with all my might not to draft. I had a lot of the dudes who passed me ask me about my road rash...apparently it looked pretty bad...(I say dudes, because as a general rule I DO NOT let women pass me on the bike...:) I have to use the bike to make up for my swim)

Here's the thing, I had fun on the bike course even with the crash...it was a great ride. Without the crash, I might have been able to avg 19mph, but I'm still very happy with my performance.

not crash. learn to grab bottles and not try to kill myself. get a fast tri bike with an aero helmet and serious tri disk wheels (just to look cool)

I'm not a slick transitioner...I know it. I also like to take my time in T2, which isn't good for racing, I just hate that feeling of the first few steps running...

practice transitioning, not waste time...

as i got off the bike and started on the run and started to sweat into my road rash, I realized the extent of pain that i was about to be in. but, i tried to break the course down mile by mile to keep myself focused and moving forward. first two miles flew by and then my legs started to loosen up. in my head i'm thinking, "man, this is easy! I'm so going to run a 1:50..." oh, the hubris.

halfway through mile 3, i had to walk...walked up until the first water station. drank a lot, because i was still dehydrated from my lack of fluid consumption on the bike. Then tried to pick up the running again. It was pretty much off and on like that the whole course. a couple miles running, some walking through an aid station. I was very good about drinking gatorade and water, and tried to take gels, but after sitting out in the sun they were warm and didn't sit well in my stomach.

As you see from above my splits were ALL OVER the place. I want to be more consistent and not take walk breaks. I feel like a wuss and not a real athlete when I take walk breaks...

i finished. and looked for people. had a beer with the ATC-ers. puked up the beer that i had with the ATC-ers. swore i would never drink beer after a long distance event again.


a crash. my broke foot. not really training for the swimming portion.


It wasn't a problem for me, but I heard they ran out of cups and water and stuff at the aid stations for the later finishers.