It was just too cold in the water to compare this to anything else. Most of the pack waded or ran the first 100 yards in the lake. I ranked this swim as 'good' for conditions.

I should have taken to swimming sooner. I didn't trust that I would be able to put my face in that cold water, but once I did I started to pull away from the pack.

It was a long run from the edge of the water to the transition area, but the wetsuit strippers helped a lot. Everything was dry inside my bag, and in the correct order. The only trouble I had was trying to get wet arms into dry sleeves and gloves. I dried off, but the rain kept making me wet again.

Nothing. I did the best I could in spite of the rain.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

I might have given it more leg if I had known I'd feel pretty well for the run.

Struggled a bit with my socks because my feet were so cold, and I was shivering. It was nice to have a dry pair of shoes for the run!

I can't stop the rain, so I'll have to be happy with this!

I forgot my running computer. That may turn out to be a blessing when I find out what my real splits were.

Ran to the end of the first mile to meet my daughter. She was having a terrible, terrible, race, see the 'comments' section below. Put all of our soaking-wet gear in the car. Went to the awards ceremony. Done by noon!


Cold, cold, cold water, and rain, rain, rain.


They made two changes to the race this year that I thought were great!

First, they started the men's and women's heats separately. This helped eliminate congestion in the water. YAY!

Second, there used to be a long run with your bike from transition to the mount line. They moved the mount line to where you first hit the pavement out of transition. Double YAY!

My poor DD, though. She had a terrible race. Before the race she cut her finger with a knife, trying to get the tag off her new sunglasses. She was bleeding badly, but got enough bandaids on it to temporarily stop it.

At the swim start, the water temperature made her lose confidence; she panicked a bit. She kept her head out of the water most of the way.

In T1 she decided to take the bandaids off, figuring her thumb had stopped bleeding. It hadn't. She asked the RD for bandaids, but all their first-aid kits were out on the course. It took five minutes to find bandaids and get the bleeding stopped. By this time she was waaaaayyy behind. She was freezing, and shivering. She put on socks, shoes, running pants, a long-sleeved tee, a hoodie, a wind breaker and gloves. When I met her on the bike, she was 25 minutes behind me already.

She slogged through the bike course, just coming in as I was in my last mile of the run. She doesn't have bike shoes, so she had to run in wet shoes. When I met her at the end of the one-mile run loop, she asked me to bring her her hydration belt. Her number was on it, and she had forgotten it in T2. The RD said I could ride out and give it to her.

Poor girl, when she finally finished she came over to me and put her head on my shoulder and cried. She is 18 years old, and an excellent athlete, and very competitive. This race was a big bummer for her, finishing in 2 hours flat. She could have easily finished this course sub 1:30 on a less traumatic day.

I tried to comfort her, and I told her it would be easy to improve next year, but that didn't work. All day yesterday she swore she'd never do a race that cold or wet again.......BUT....this morning she was all ready to go do it and conquer! I love that kid!