My favorite swim goggles broke the day before. I bought the exact same pair. When I went in for my warm up, my gogles leaked on one eye. I wear contacts so this is a problem. I had to keep surfacing and letting the water out of my eye. After a while I decided to keep my one eye shut and do minimum sighting. It wasn't perfect but it did work. Got out of the swim took off my gogles and my contact was somewhere in my eyeball but not were it was suppose to be. I can know see large objects everything else is very fuzzy.

Have a backup pair of goggles.

This was my day to experiment with everything that I had been planning. It was not to race but to have a good planned training session. I already had my race belt and number under my wetsuit, trisuit was on with the top undone, oherwise it rubbs on my shoulder while swimming. Put on heart rate monitor, grabbed my peanut butter and jam sandwich, put on bike gloves and off I go.

Speed up this process

Nutrition and Hydration was just perfect on the bike, very pleased about the way that went. I'm embarrassed to say it but I did pee on the bike 2 times. A big downward hill with great speed helped with this situation. I also got a drafting penalty were I had to get off my bike and hold it up and then resume riding. I was going up this huge hill and this girl was in fron of me. We were both grinding with all our might to get up, there is no way I had enough steam to pass here. A motorcycle pulled up and gave me the penalty. I didn't think it was fair but I was in no situation to argue. The hard part was to get my bike started halfway up a hill from a dead start, without interfering with other riders coming up the hill. I almost fell off before I could get the bike moving again.

Practise riding on hills.

Took my time again and tried to think off everything. My contact finally foundits way back into the centre of my eyeball so everything looks alot better know. Put my GPS on and away I went.

Bring onother pair of socks. Mine were soaking wet from peeing in them. Gross. Bring a hat, 90 degree weather and no shade is hard to handle.

All my planning and experimenting went well all day until I go to the run. With the heat and the hills it was impossible to maintain my pace. I found myself running my pace for about 4 to 5 minutes then walking for a while, then doing this all over again. I couldn't seem to settle into a slow constant pace. I was really dissapointed about this situation. I was well hydrated and well fed, I did manage to find a slower manageable pace toward the least quarter of the race, it was far from perfect.

I have to learn to run at different pace levels. For some reason, I seem to think its fast or nothing. That really does well for shorter flatter courses.

Walked for a short time, then went under a cold shower at the race site.


Heat, ability to alter my pace, don't run in pee soaked socks, and don't allow your shoes to get full of water from the aid stations. Pour water on head not on shoes.


Demanding race with lots of challenges, definetely one I will continue to do.