There were a lot of rhinos out there in the water. Man, I got smacked up the head, across the back, and body-checked a number of times. I tried my best to draft, but as soon as I caught a jet stream to draft off of, I'd get pinched out of position. With such a narrow lake as we were swimming in though, I'd imagine there was a fairly good current going on just from all the swimmer action.

Hit the turn in 21 min or so, so was feeling good.

The swim exit was a bit wanky. I just about knocked 2 volunteers down, as they were trying to pull be from the water like some haul of a fish. I felt a bit bad for getting them all wet.

Overall, I was happy with this swim.

Tent transition. Tried to be methodical and move on out, but it still took a little longer than I wanted.

Move faster.

The 3 bitches? What? The 3 witches? Oh, the 3 sisters? What are those. I put 2 and 2 together by the time I was on top of the 2nd sister.

Before that I had gotten kinda confused on the course - couldn't quite figure out the out and back's we were on. The road felt a bit like Lake Pleasant to me. It was great seeing Kara, Lisa, and Dean on the course. I was surprised when Brian passed me, because I thought he must be ahead of me somewhere. I told him I was good at spinning hills, and then he took off and left me in his dust. haha.

I focused on ticking down the miles on the bike course. The whole thing was just evil to me. When I hit the 3rd sister, I geared down 1 past the number of gears I have, and my chain fell off the cassette, so I just walked the hill. Spinning it, I barely made it up faster than riding anyway, and I probably shot my legs up right then and there on those rollers. The bike path past the sisters was tremendously boring and tedious. I just wanted to get done with the whole thing!

I kinda forgot to consume salt during the bike portion, and I probably paid for this later.

So I probably screwed up this race a bit by not becoming familiar with the map ahead of time. To me, knowing the configuration of the course is everything, because I set mental anchors at the turn arounds and tops of hills.

I didn't really realize that the out-and-back section went so far out, and this doomed me mentally.

It also didn't help that I was playing cramp control from mile 2 to the end.

Not the most spectacular performance, but acceptable considering lack of preparation.

Know thy run course.

Lack of preparation on bike hills. Lack of knowledge of the course.


This was a good challenge to test myself on. Since I did this race for social reasons more than the race itself, I only wish I could have spent time with folks after the race. I would have liked to cheer Lisa & Kara in. (Probably would have missed Brian anyway since I was still dying over in the grass when he probably crossed.) Next time I need to plan on staying the night in the town so that I dont' have to run off to get home for work the next day...