Since I was doing the full aquabike, I got to start in the first wave with the full distance athletes. This was the first time I have done a mass start with males and females, so good practice for Florida. I started to the right and about 3 back, but was close to the buoys on the inside line shortly after starting. This was an interesting swim because the long part parallel to the shore was shallow and there were lots of people walking. I would not allow myself to do that. I wanted to swim the whole 2.4 miles in prep for Florida. I knew this was a training day so I didn't push too hard, but made sure to keep up my pace. After the first lap, I did stand up briefly to kind of simulate Florida since I will have to stand up and cross the timing mat there. When I stood up I glanced at my watch and saw 43 minutes. I was happy and hoped I could keep up that pace for the second lap. I did get kicked and elbowed in the head on the first loop. The second loop was much less congested.

Overall, I was please with this swim. Yes, I would like to get faster, but it's not going to happen in the next six weeks. If I can swim within 15 minutes of this at Florida I will be happy.

As I stood up to exit the water I put my goggles on my head, unzipped my wetsuit and got my arms out. I used the wetsuit strippers. The suit got stuck on one of my ankles, but the stripped got it off pretty quick and then helped me up. Grabbed the suit from her and headed to the T1 tent. I didn't have to use the tent in this race but decided to so that I could go through the motions like I will do in Florida. A volunteer called out my number and my bag was handed to me as I entered the tent. Sat down and pulled out my zip lock bag (thanks to lots of advice from people on here, I used the zip lock bag system and I knew which bag had my "necessities" in it). Dried off my feet, put my socks on, turned my garmin on so it could locate a satellite, put on my HR strap, gloves and sunglasses, shoved everything back in my bag, grabbed my shoes and ran in my socks to my bike. It was a long run and I didn't want to run in my bike shoes so I put them and my helmet on at the bike. Grabbed the bike and headed out. Had to go up a curb, down the sidewalk, and back down the curb to get to the exit.

This was a slower transition than I normally have, but I did use the tent and I needed the practice for that, so I was ok with this time. I do need to remember to reapply sunscreen in T1 at Florida though. I did not do that here and I got a little sun. Not bad, but more sunscreen would have been nice.

I had driven the course the day before and since it was a 4 loop course, it wasn't hard to memorize the course in my head so that I could visualize at all times where I was and know what was coming. The first part of the course heading out was fairly fast. About mile 11, however, there is a stretch of road that is very rough. The road is so rough that at the pre-race meeting, they told us we would not be penalized for riding on the left side of the road to avoid the cracks and potholes. They did a fairly good job of marking the holes and rough parts, but it was hard to avoid it altogether and definitely made it hard to keep the pace up through this part. They did a good job of having cops at the intersections to control traffic since this was an open course.

I am notorious for having to stop and pee around mile 20 or 1 hour into the ride so I had hoped to make it through one loop before having to stop. Unfortunately, after hitting the rough spot on the way out my bladder was screaming at me. I stopped at the aid station at the halfway turnaround point and took care of business. I felt much better. Didn't stop again until the aid station at 56. I wanted to simulate stopping at special needs at IMFL and 2 of my bottles were empty so I needed to refill anyway. The volunteers were great and very helpful in getting me in and out as quickly as possible.

I had hoped to make it the rest of the way without stopping again, but heading out on the 4th lap the heat was getting to me and I felt a little off. Decided to stop and drink some cold water and dump some on my head. That was just what I needed and after that I was good to go.

I did stand up to climb some of the hills just to get out of the saddle and that felt good. My legs felt good the whole time and even though I probably didn't drink as much as I should, I think I did fine on my nutrition. Used Infinit. I'm suppose to drink a bottle an hour, but even with drinking every 10 minutes, I still can't get it all in.

The last 15-20 miles, I just drank water. As I went through each aid station I would grab the bottle, drink as much as I could, dump some on my head and toss the bottle. Having something COLD was nice. I need to start this process earlier at Florida.

I came into transition with a smile on my face.


Not much. Even though it was a little slower than I hopped, I was please with the ride on this course. I may try to rent deeper wheels for Florida and hopefully the roads there will be in better condition. There won't be as many 90 degree turns there either.

One thing I do need to remember is to put some chamois butter or something on before the bike. I have never ridden with it, even in all my century rides, but I did get some minor chaffing on this ride, so better to have it on and be safe.

The way the aquabike is set up here, you still have to go through T2 and exit the run, run for a little bit, make a u-turn and head to the finish line. Once I got off the bike, I ran to my spot, put my running shoes on, grabbed my fuel belt for my planned brick run, and ran out of T2. T2 time was 2:50. My "run" time from exiting T2 to the finish line was 1:24.


I'm just not speedy gonzales. I've improved, but still have room to go.


Overall I was happy with my performance at this race. The volunteers were nice and helpful, got some good swag, got a good post race massage. The one thing I did like is that race numbers were temporary tattoos, so we put them on the night before and didn't have to get body-marked race morning. The bad part of that was that the numbers were so big, they barely fit on my arms! People that did the race in the past said the road conditions this year were much better than last, but the roads were not in that great of condition in my mind. If they could find some better roads, it would be great. The weather also turned out to be great for race day.