Ok.. so I learned really one thing at my last tri.. Don't go out so freakin hard. and I didn't.. I learned another thing at this tri.. you can fit 135 people in a small space comfortably if they are standing straight up. Once they swim.. all new story. I was in the second line of swimmers in our wave and ended up having to push my way through to open water.. After I did that It was really only up to me to screw things up :)

The first leg felt pretty good and I navigated pretty well out to the turn bouy. I tried not to sight too much as it really destroys my stroke and momentum. Rounded the first bouy pretty close and headed down the back stretch having to dodge some folks from the previous two waves. ok.. not so bad.. now.. here is where I screw things up. I rated my navagation bad because when I rounded the second bouy to head home I ended up swinging kinda wide (not too bad though) and heading back in as If the course was square.. This side of the triangular course headed back over towards where we started.. Anyway.. the next thing I know I breathe over to my left and this lady on a motor boat is looking at me and pointing in a direction that I'm not going.. so I veer off to the right and start sighting less on the bouys and more on the big huge red chute at the swim exit. Aside for my poor navigation I'm really pretty pleased with my swim. I kept my rythym for most of the leg and had a good strong finish. I really have no idea how far I swam..

Swim the swim course and not go sight seeing around the freakin lake! I'm also gonna make a point to get in the front of the swim starts from now on. I think it would probably be less painful to be swum over than to try and swim through people.

Also, I think next time I'm going topless and getting a gel flask. I think my top is slowing me down. It felt kinda baggy in the back.

The transition area was HUGE! there were two sides to it. The Swim entrance was at one end. facing away from that the bike in and out were on the right side (kinda crappy) and the run out was on the left. There were some nice kiddy pools full of water that we used to wash off our feet since we'd just run up the "beach". That was nice and my feet stayed clean till i got to my bike which was at the other end of the T-area. socks went on pretty quickly, shoes on.. helmet on.. get outta there. I was maybe 40 feet from the bike out which was perfect cause I didn't have to run in my shoes. The only crappy part about it was that the lane where folks were biking in was on the left side of the in/out exit space so I had to cross a lane of traffic to get to the bike out.. kinda screwy. jogged up to the mount line and headed out. The space for the mounting and dismounting was pretty limited so things got a little crowded at that spot. (I was 15th in my division at this.. not bad)

I think that this is about as quick as I'm gonna be able to do this unless the T-area is smaller or I learn to ride with out socks.

I didn't get my legs warmed up at all before the bike so the first couple of miles were kinda stiff. Once I got warm things went great. I got passed by many folks but most of them were real cyclists with disc wheels and just plain fast. The first quarter of the course didn't really have any real hills to it but the second and third had some pretty good ones. I was pretty intimidated after the ride through seeing some of the climbs but I guess I used my momentum really really well because I actually ended up passing like 5 and 6 people at a time on the climbs. No body was more suprised than me. (I do however think they knew something that I didn't. More on this later) I felt great on the back coming in and just really had fun on this leg. I also think I did a pretty good job keeping my cadence up which probably help lots with the hills.

Well.. Nothing other that probably not leave so much out on the bike course.

Everything went well here except they made us run the same direction around the transition area so I actually had to run the entire loop. I guess this made it fair but it was a little confusing because I don't think that it was mentioned to us ahead of time. (or i wasn't paying attention :) )

WOW.. I just calculated my time for T2 in my division and I was the 3rd fastest.. can't complain there.. :)

try and learn to run without socks. but really at this point the extra 10 seconds to put them on is not a big deal.

Oh my.. this was horribly painful the majority of the way. I rode the bike pretty hard and really didn't have much gas left for the run. I felt OK right off the bike but it didn't take long for me to break down.. I think I had too much gatorade in my belly from the end of the bike (gotta fix that next time) so I didn't drink at most of the water stations. I was just pouring the water on my head. I walked a little bit of the way.. at a few of the water stations and just after this hill on the course that pretty much ate me up. Lots of work to do here.

Not bike so hard. I think my endurance here is acutally getting much better but my strength and speed is still pretty poor. I'm gonna have to start working some speed and strengh work into my shorter runs.

uh.. bend over.. try not to hurl.. go stand under the beautiful misting fans.. drank lots of water.


My run.. I'm still not sure that If I would have held off on the bike some that I would have had enough in me to turn out a good enough run to make up the time that I would have given away on the bike. Oh.. and staying on the swim course would have been nice too.. :)




The race was AWESOME! Great SWAG, chance to win a car.. (now that is some super swag!!) the staff and volunteers were great.. I'd recommend this race to everyone in the area.. I have no doubt it will become a gathing place for lots of BTers in the future.. next time we need to get more of the group together though.

It was great to meet everyone in person! I'm proud to know all of you!