First Olympic distance race for me, wasn't worried about the swimming distance just curiouse about the course.

This swim sucked for me. It was a neat idea with the two loops but it was not good for a fast swim time. I was constantly swimming up on people, I had to stop multiple times and just tread water and look for a way around the clumps of people. The exit was just a mad house. On both exits I found myself just floating waiting for my turn to get out, I lost quite a bit of time but something to think about is, everyone was in the same boat.

I would like to see next year have a seperate loop on the inside maybe. Just some way where you do not have to swim through the remaining groups. For example I had to swim through all of the groups before me and then on the second loop swim through everyone that started after. In most of these open water races, the clumps of people start to thin out and its not as difficult to navigate through.

Not wear my race bib on the swim and zip up the front of the jersey. I read in the digital guide that we had to wear our number on the bike, so I figured I would save some time and have it underneath my tri top for the swim. This back fired pretty bad when I dove in for the second loop and the belt ended up coming down around my legs!

1/3 mile run from swim to transition. This ended up not being so bad. The bike mount line was a little narrow, I had to slow down and zig zag around some people before I jumped on the bike.

Kept shoes in pedals and just jumped on the bike while it was rolling, this worked out again. I rode with my feet on the shoes until I got out to Barker because there were some turns and I wanted to be safe.

2/58 only 4 sec back from 1st.

Run faster from swim to transition.

Was right about where I wanted to be. Had a nice wind on the whole course, parts where cross, some was head and then some was tail. Tail wind was awesome!

Almost got hit by a car on the turn from Fry to Longenbaugh the second time. Cop at the intersection was letting people through and must not have thought I was coming as fast. So as I was turning a car was going through the intersection and I almost T-boned the side of it. I slammed on the brakes, fish tailed, pulled my groin getting my foot out to stop and ended up having to go to the next turn around to come back. It was a pretty stressful moment haha! I think I should have just been a little more observant and made a decision to slow down when I saw the cop letting people through. I was just in race mode and under the impression that the cops weren't going allow people through that close.

I think I could have pushed a little harder on the bike, my legs weren't really burning by the end. I still have not tested out my theory on just hammering the bike yet. Next season I will give it a shot.

Possibly push the pace more on the bike.

I was pretty slow on this transition, still sort of shaken up from the near crash, a little pissed off and worried about the pain in my groin.

move faster

I HAVE to do something differently to train for the run. I am just sucking it up hardcore on all of the runs this year. I didn't get hot this time like I have been doing, I was dumping water on me at the aid stations.

I liked the run, it was a nice change of scenery and had a fun element with the Berry Center ramps.

It comes down to just either not having endurance or speed, I can't figure it out. I started off at 7 min/mile for the first two and I would have been happy with that for the remaining miles but I ended up sliding down to 7:26/7:26/7:52/7:45, I just fell apart. There were a couple of guys that passed me that if I had the endurance or speed I could have easily jumped on them and chased.

I basically averaged out to what I have been doing my easy runs at, maybe I should start increasing my "slow, easy" run pace and that will just naturally carry over to these races. That was my first Oly race and last race of the season, so I have the off season now to look back and come up with some new ideas to improve on.

stretching and drinking water/gatorade


I did not like the swim course and hated starting so far back in the waves. I'm guessing the reasoning for the waves is the amount of people in each wave and maybe the average expected race time for that group but it really caused problems for me with all of the passing I had to do on the swim and bike.

I would like to try getting into an invitational wave for a race to see how that goes with being able to leave first.

Overall, this was a good race for my first Olympic distance race. My goal was to be under 2h 15min but there were a lot of factors that I had not considered. My goal time for the swim was 20 min but looking at the results, no one swam 20 min so maybe a long course or just a lot of traffic? My goal on the bike was 1h5min, I was very close to this and considering the near crash. My run? Well thats just a work in progress, no comment!