First OWS ever and the water was very, very cold. I had a hard time breathing for the first 15 minutes or so and was very freaked out. I had to stop a few times to fix my goggles. Did a great job sighting the first half of the course (nailed both turns as tight as possible) but the second half I drifted off to one side and was doing my own thing for a while.

Get a sleeved wetsuit--the water temp sucked the air from my lungs. I also could have had a better course the second half.

Pretty slow transition, the swim was 100+ yrds from the transition area. The wetsuit peelers got my suit off very quickly, but I could not get my tri top on for the life of me! I think I tried putting it on about 4 times, eventually I just yanked so hard that it almost ripped and forced it on. It was very frustrating.

Worn my tri top under my wetsuit.

Extremely hilly course, with some rain/mist. I hit 50 mph on a downhill and 42 on another (very cool). The first 12 miles were a pretty consitant uphill that I just spun up. I had a hard time switching to and from aero to switch gears (I was riding a road bike) to take advantage of some of the hills. Overall I focused on hitting nutrition and just doing a comforatble pace. I had 2.5 power bars and about 3 gels and felt great coming off the bike.

It would have been nice to have a tri bike so I could have stayed in aero and shifted gears from there--other than that if I wasn't so fat I probably could have gone faster on such a hilly course. I think I did pretty well all things considered.

I slammed my feet in to some socks + shoes and pounded 3 asprin and some endurox. I wasted about 30 seconds waiting for a bathroom to open up before I said screw it.

Not waited for the bathroom--I ended up peeing like 3 minutes later on a bush on the course.

Run started out HORRIBLY. I had excruciating shin pains that I thought might force me to drop out. I kept running for the first 2 miles and it got better (thank god). I know it takes about 4 miles for my legs to loosen up so I took the first few miles super light before picking up the pace for miles 4-9. Miles 10-13 were death. I didn't eat anything on the entire course and was running on fumes/mental for most of the run. I stopped at just about every aid station, but each cup of water/gatorade made me feel like puking (I didn't dare try a gel). I had to stop and walk for 1 minute during mile 12. Thanks to the guy who ran with me for most of it--we got through it!

Not sure what I could have done differently. Fuel would have helped but I'm pretty sure I would have gotten sick. I would have liked to run faster but being exhausted kind of ruins those plans!

Sat on the ground looking like a zombie. Put on a space blanket and drove 6 hours home--stopping of course to get a quad stacker at burger king. Probably the worst worm-down possible.