16/37 women
Craptastic swim. Seeding in a deep water start is tricky and up to luck. I wasn't lucky. Ended up in the middle of the pack and had to swim around/over a lot of people. Then got my goggles knocked sideways and that made me very annoyed. I decided it was too short a swim to stop and fix them, so I just swam as best I could with limited vision. Still never found a groove out there.

Start in the proper place. Maybe try to warm up a bit more, but it's kind of hard there.

Duh. Now what? As I stood there looking at the bike, I wondered what I was supposed to do next. Gotta work on that. My suit was stuck, I couldn't get my feet in my shoes and my helmet wasn't cooperating.

I really need to practice transitions. A lot.

22/37 women (I dropped a few places here. That shouldn't happen, esp after such a rotten swim)
We started out with a sweet tailwind, but I knew it would end quickly. I was doing well and trying to find my pace. Wendy passed me around mile 10 near Clark's Grove. As she went by, she suggested we bag the race and go for a beer. Best idea I'd heard all day. But we kept pedalling. I kept her in range for a couple miles, but she pulled away from me in the headwind section. I played leapfrog with another girl the rest of the way in. Neither one of us had the legs to pull away.

Not much. I realized later that I didn't drink enough. It's hard to drink when you're getting blown all over the road.

Decent T2. Nearly got into a pileup at the entrance to transition. My dismount was a bit quick and I had to weave around people who had stopped.

Not much. I haven't switched to Yankz for the running shoes because I think they cause some foot issues for me. Guess I could practice tying shoes quicker.

29/37 women
Out of T2, I felt OK, but kind of tired. I walked the hill in the parking lot just out of transition. After that no more walking. I passed a couple people, but of course, more passed me. There were people cheering at two houses and that was kind of cool. Around mile 2 or so, I came up on a girl that was clearly struggling. As I pulled up beside her, I told her we were only about 15 min out. She seemed so thankful for that info. She ran a bit and got in front of me, but I passed her again. She was still happy for the encouragement. That made a tough run a little better for me.

Not much. It was slow, but better than I've been training. Need some speed work on the run.

Crossed the line, chip off and got some water. I think I needed much more water since it was getting pretty hot out there. We're just not used to 80* temps at AL. Bonus- Nothing really hurt. I was tired, but not in pain. That's excellent!


Heat, wind, not enough water. Those are the big things.


For a small local race, AL is a nice event. They are on the ball with course marking, volunteers, water stops, and all the other logistics. It's not a big fancy event, but a well run local race. That's why we keep coming back.