In a nutshell, I freaked out. I don't know if it was the out of water start, the cold water, the wetsuit or what but I started to hyperventilate. I tried to get my stroke going but I would try to catch my breath underwater which doesn't work out too well. So, thank goodness for wetsuit buoyancy, I sort of chilled out and treaded water for a few seconds to calm myself down, tried to swim again, still couldn't do it. There were two other people behind me, both getting rescued to I was literally DFL, such a humbling thing. I could not have another Triangle race in which I swam the entire thing with my head out of water. I started weigh my options. Get rescued and DNF, maybe I could still bike and run but not officially. Should I screw it all and just quit. Ugh I am so not a quitter and I would never hear the end of it. So I tried one more time and finally calmed by breath down enough to swim. I was so proud of myself for getting my shit together. I actually started passing people! Well ok not too many but enough to not be the last out of the water. I felt like I swam forever, and once I turned to get back to shore I felt like the chop really picked up but I knew I was almost done and nothing could stop me now!

Um, warm up in the water. I never do this but given the fact that it's been over a month since my last tri and even though I have been swimming in colder water with the wetsuit it would have been beneficial to do some warm up laps, lesson learned.

Getting the wetsuit off was super easy but I was really shaking so I had to take some deep breathes and calm myself down so I could get my bike shoes on. I was already nervous about mounting my bike with the clipless pedals and the swim fiasco was still on my mind.

Nothing, yeah I was slow but I needed the extra minute or so to get in the bike frame of mind.

Took some time to get into my clipless pedals but finally got in without falling over, success! I am familiar with the bike route so I knew what was ahead of me, I didn't remember the gradual hill at the very beginning and I think I was still trying to calm myself down because I could not get my legs moving. The first 10 miles were brutal because of the head wind. I felt like I was crawling. About 30 minutes in a took a gel, had some water and tried to blow the rest of the lake water out of my nice, then I got to business. Since i was in the back of the race it is really a different experience because you bike by yourself at some point, no one is out there to challenge you or for you to pass, it's weird. So I had to keep my head in it and hammer it. The second 10 miles were great, I started passing people and went back and forth with this guy, I would beat him up the hills and he would beat me down the hill, it kept things interesting. At the 20 miles mark I took another gel and water and nose blowing and concentrated on making the hills "my bitch." I knew I was in for a challenge and I just kept hammering up the hills, I knew I was almost done and then I would finally be on the run. The hills weren't as bad as I remembered in the training ride, which is a good thing! At this point I knew my race time would be nothing stellar so I was in it for the fun and the experience.

Bring solid food to eat before the run.

I stopped way before the dismount line to get out of my pedals without falling over, came out easily and had no problem getting off the bike...hooray! Had heavy legs and wasn't used to running in the bike shoes so felt really weird. Took my time to get the bike shoes off and the running gear on, then couldn't find the run out...whoops, need to find that before the race next time!

Everyone mentioned how hilly the run course was but to be honest, I train on hills so I wasn't at all worried about it. Took me a good mile or so for my legs to loosen up but after that I was golden. The miles came really fast for me but my problem was that around mile 2 I was STARVING! Like gels and HEEd weren't gonna cut it, I needed solid food. I wish I brought a bar or rice crispy treat :) to munch on but another lesson learned. I stopped at each water station to try to get something in my stomach but it ended up making me nauseous and burpy. But I trucked along and didn't stop for anything. Passed a decent amount of people walking up the hills. Had a chaffing problem under my right arm which was killing me, note to self to Body Glide that in the future. Otherwise I felt like this was a decent run time, certainly room for improvement but am overall happy with it.

Solid food and Body Glide.

Once I finished I went straight for food, grabbed a bottle of water and a hot dog and a cookie. Had the cookie and water and about half the hotdog before the sweet/fake ketchup made me nauseous again. All I wanted was a bagel and fruit but there was NONE! So disappointed in Set Up for the lack of reasonably healthy food. Stared packing up my mess of my transition area and found the banana from this morning! Hooray! I inhaled it and instantly started feeling better! It started raining at this point and we were both exhausted so we made our way home. Yes I fell asleep on the ride home, I couldn't help it :)


Nutrition, I need to bring more and eat more on the bike and bring a small emergency bar on the run in case I am totally empty. May try the peanut butter pretzels Harold had, would be easy for me to eat on the bike since I still get a little squirrely on the bike when I try to eat and drink.


I will say the volunteers were great at this race, especially the guys at the water bottle handoff on the bike course, they were awesome and very motivating!