What a swim. We were the first wave to go in, and before we started the starter told us how strong the current was in the break. He told us "I'm going to be honest. If this is your first time in the ocean, you may want to reconsider." I thought 'I've been in the ocean plenty of times, this will be OK." I have never done an ocean swim, for any distance, but I've been going to the ocean since I was a kid, I know what waves are, and these didn't *look* that bad. My wife and my friend and I stood in the back of our wave; none of us were competitive swimmers, and this was pretty much our first tri so we figured we'd let people go ahead of us and hash things out. When he blew the horn to go, we ran into the water, and people were really taking their time getting in. I kept running, passing a bunch of people before the water was up to our waist. Once we got about that deep, I tried to keep running through the waves, but these things were powerful! they drove you back, but also very far north (away from where we were trying to go). It was 1 step forward, 2 steps back for sure. We stayed together for quite awhile as we struggled to even get into the water. As I started to get a tiny bit deeper, I could start going under the waves, which was much better in terms of making progress, but the current was still powerful and it kept pushing us down-beach. I looked around, there really weren't many people around us at this point. I could see several deeper in, actually swimming, but the majority seemed to be worse off than me, being washed further away and not in the water very far. After I got a little deeper with a combo of going under the waves and walking, the water was only a little bit above my waist. I decided to give swimming a try. It wasn't really swimming, I had to keep my head above water to keep from being clobbered, but I did this and continued to dive under the waves as deep as I could. Finally after doing this for awhile, I popped up and was right next to the buoy. Not because I had swum out there, but because the buoy had washed in. There were 2 lifeguards trying to drag it back out. I said to them 'this really sucks' and one of them told me 'keep at it, you'll be glad you finished.' I thought to myself, 'she's right, I've got to keep trying, what would I do if I quit? It would be so disappointing.' At that point, things seemed to get a little easier in the water. It calmed down just enough that I could get out further. (I kept swimming out into the ocean, even though the buoy was behind me so that I could avoid the break and large swells) Somewhere at this time, I heard another airhorn blast for the next wave. Also somewhere at this point I could finally put my head in the water without fear of being pummeled, so I started to get into a rhythm. Not long after that, I was caught by 5 or so swimmers in the previous heat. I kept swimming, going even a little further out, and making more progress. At some point I was caught by a swimmer in the 3rd wave, then I noticed a lifeguard on a Jet Ski yelling something to the swimmers behind me. I figured in these conditions I should probably try to hear, and he was telling everyone to swim in to shore, that the swim had been canceled, that they were having to make too many rescues. I have never been so relieved and disappointed at the same time. I was tired of swimming, but who isn't at some point of a long swim, but I wasted to complete the swim because I didn't feel like very many people were in front of me. But oh, well, what can you do? As I started making my way in to shore, I saw a bunch of people walking along the beach back toward the transition area, they were the later waves that never even went in the water. I wasn't sure what would happen next, was the race still going right now, or were they going to restart everything once everyone regrouped. I decided it wasn't worth risking the chance that the clock was still running, so I ran back to the transition area.

Swim more. Wearing the wetsuits for the first time in a race, for our fist race, was a non-issue. They fit well, didn't constrict my breathing, I was perfectly comfortable, so was my wife. So we dodged that bullet.

There was so much confusion for me at this point, it really slowed things down. I was not just trying to get out of swim stuff and onto the bike, but also to figure out what was happening with the race. I also spent time talking with my wife and trying to process why she was in the transition area before me (she turned around before making it to the buoy)

the change was smooth, just confusing

The bike was easy - no hills, smooth, straight. There were a lot of people out there, after the crazy start to the race, some people had finished the swim, others had done part of the swim, others didn't get wet. It made for a crowded course, with people passing 3 across. It was almost impossible not to draft, there was always someone 1 or 2 bike lengths in front of you. I didn't go hard at all on the bike, just a nice, steady, easy pace, to save my legs for the run.

I should have gone harder, I think. I never worked out of a conversational pace, I was never working hard and I think I probably should push myself harder on the bike and just let the run suffer.

Good transition, although I couldn't find my spot right away and lost some time there.

Make better note of what my spot looks like without a bike there.

I didn't go as hard on the run as I should have, I didn't have the motivation because so much was so crazy with the beginning of the race, I started thinking, 'how am I going to even know how I really do?' It's hard for me to push hard unless I know I can really compare myself to others and I just didn't feel like anyone was running the same course with the crazy start. It was hot on the way back, too.

Push harder

Drank a ton of gatorade and ate a bunch of oranges


not having a real swim, and knowing everyone was kind of running a different race really de-motivated me.


I don't think I'll do this again, it's too much trouble traveling. But it was an adventure!