I started out fighting my way to the front of the pack. All of the women started at the same time, and I really wanted to win my wave. That was my big goal of the day.
Traffic was pretty bad. At one point, a girl swam halfway over top of my. I planted my foot on her chest (that's how far up me she swam!) and pushed off. I didn't want to kick her, but I had to get her off of me.
After freeing myself from traffic, I passed the first women. I stayed there and caught a few people from the wave before us. They stared the waves really far apart, which was nice, because I didn't have to dodge too much traffic.

Swim Faster!
Claim my space in the front and not let people overtake me on the start.

This transition includes 100-200 yards of running in the sand - it feels so long! They also don't have volunteers keeping people out of the athlete's way. I decided to be mean and tell some of them there was still another wave of athletes coming.

I need to practice getting my bike shoes on faster.

My bike mount went smoothly. I ran in my bike shoes out to the mount line.
I took off on the bike and was still in first. I had really wanted to do well on the swim, so I was happy. I wanted to average over 18mph, so I set my computer to show average speed and just cranked it.
I went back and forth with a couple of women. I tried my hardest on the hills, and on the downhills! I stayed on my big ring except when I climbed the big bridge the second time. It felt pretty good, and I was happy with my speed.
My dismount went well.

Practice U-turns.

I got yelled at for not slowing down before the mount line. Oh well.

Practice dismount! I think I need to dismount like that for all of my training rides and it'll fall into place.

I set out on the run telling myself that I've done bricks longer than this bike/run in my training. I just wanted to go fast and finish.
During the first 1/2 mile, I saw a girl and decided I was going to run at her pace. I ended up passing her, and she caught me again just after mile 1. We decided to run together. I knew I needed it, because I went out and did my first mile in like 8:20, which is super fast for me. We chatted and kept our pace going. Mile 2 felt really long.
I wasn't really tired, my breathing was great, and my legs felt fine. I could tell I could push it harder, but because my best 5k was a 9:05 pace, I didn't want to push harder if I was running 8:20s.
We picked up the pace with 1/2 mile left, and really kicked it with 1/4 mile left.
I had NO IDEA I could run that fast!!

Not a thing.

Had some Title sports drink. Wandered around. Cleaned up transition. Wandered around. Sat in the grass and waited for awards.


Bike training on hills! The bridge slowed me down. There are no hills in FL, so I could use a few bridge rides.


Good race. Could have used some port-a-potties right near the start. And expo type thing afterward would have been cool too.