The race director said the water was too cold - which was BS - it was about 54 degrees which is fine in a wetsuit. I even went in the day before without a wetsuit! The elite race still held the swim - I tried to get into that race instead, but the RD said it was too late. Bummer - I would have most likely qualified for my elite card. Oh well.

All this was was running over the timing mat with my bike shoes and helmet already on and running to my bike. Unfortunately I forgot to turn my Garmin on before the start so missed the first few minutes of data and lost a couple of seconds fiddling with that while on the bike.

Turn on my Garmin before the race

Since they cancelled the swim I decided to treat this race like a bike TT with a 5 mile run tacked onto the end. My legs were sore from doing water entry/exits yesterday -why did I think that was a good idea at the time? But, once I got moving I felt OK, but a little flat. They had the women go last and I started towards the front of the women's pack. I quickly passed most of the women right out of transition and a few men having trouble getting on their bikes. I got into a good groove and by the first U-turn I could see that I had about a 20 sec gap on the next female. By the second U turn I had built the lead up to about 30 sec. On the second lap I pushed the first 2/3rds then after the last U-turn took it easy going downhill and into T2 to set up for the run. I tried to take a couple of sips of water every 5 min on the bike.

Not much

Loosened my shoes before hoping off the bike, but kept them on while I ran into transition. Popped them off, took off my helmet and got my shoes on. Grabbed my hat and headed out of transition.

re-learn how to get on/off the bike with shoes on the bike.

When I got off the bike my calves felt like they were going to explode since they were tight from all the water exit/entry drills from yesterday. It didn't help that the first 1/2 mile was in sand either. Luckily they started to loosen up by the time I hit the dirt trail but my gait still didn't feel as good as it should. Breathing was good - no asthma issues. I do remember thinking there should have been more water stops - I think there were only 2 which didn't seem like a lot. There were a fair amount of people who actually brought water bottles with them on the run - though that was a bit much but would have liked at least 1 more water stop. I also felt like I held back a little too much on the run - I had too much left at the finish.

Go a little harder and not do something that makes me sore the day before a race.

Chatted with people - the gal who was just behind me on the bike...she passed me on the run was really nice - turns out she is really speedy - just over 10 hours at IMAZ!


Still gaining confidence on the run. Having the swim would have been nice too. While I liked the trail/sand run course I would have gone faster on pavement.


I was not that impressed with the organization of this race. 1 - they should have held the swim. 2. There should have been more water stations. 3. There was supposed to be an elite wave and a prize purse and there wasn't. 4. They didn't allow people to transfer to the elite race in the afternoon. 5. Awards and results were messed up at first.
I would do this race again if I was heading down to FLA for a training camp during the same time period, however I don't think I would just come down for the race. I wanted to go to race against elites and see how I matched up against them on the swim and the bike and unfortunately that did not happen.