Terrible swim. I could NOT get a breathing rhythm. It was ridiculous! The water didn't feel cold at all, I was very relaxed, when I was swimming, I felt smooth and confident, but I could NOT breathe. I ended up having to side-stroke most of the swim. Very disappointing. I was only about 20 seconds faster than last year and last year included a panic!

I'm really not sure what I could have done differently. I thought I was totally ready and I'm more than a little surprised at my reaction. In retrospect, I wonder if the problem is my new wetsuit. I cannot zip it up myself because it is so tight in the torso. Perhaps that is not a good thing...

Very, very long transitions due to flooding in the original transition location. I had to run with my bike for a LONG way (as did everyone) and I was NOT good at running either in my bike shoes or with holding the TT bike. Everything else went fine.

If I keep my TT bike, I need to practice running with it. My T2 recap will show why!

Disappointing performance. Again. I'm in better shape than last year. I'm lighter. The road surface was improved. I was on a TT bike. And all of this but my bike avg speed was the almost the SAME as last year. I felt like I was putting out a good effort but I never felt GOOD. By the end, I was thinking that I just wanted to get off the bike. I did rabbit back and forth with another woman (also in my age group), so that was amusing. She out ran me by almost 5 minutes though!

Next time, I think I'm going to ride the road bike. I'm not sure. I've been fighting with this TT bike for months now. I thought for sure that I'd see a better time/pace for THIS race. It's perfectly suited to a TT bike with the utter flat and straightness of the course. Disappointing.

Again, LONG transitions. After dismounting, I was running (on grass, all alone) and my wheel caught and I tumbled over my bike scraping up my knee and landing on my bike. Embarrassing!!

Practice running with my TT bike!

Very pleased with my run. I made my first summer goal! I wanted to finish with a 5k time below 30 min as part of a sprint tri. :-) I felt comfortable the entire run. Never hot, never cold. My feet were a little achey, but nothing to worry about. As we came up on the finish line, I picked up speed and realized instantly that I had more in me. I could have pushed harder but I'm still pleased with the results.

Have some type of pacing device (like a watch!) so that I could have better gauged my effort. And of course, more running. I was more than 5 minutes faster than last year on this same course, so I'm hoping to drop at least half that by this race next year. :-)

Spent a bunch of time talking with friends at the finish as I downed a water bottle of fluid. I did not eat anything for another hour or so and that was a mistake as I've spent the rest of the day trying to manage my hunger.


I'm not sure, but I think I may have had a couple of equipment issues (wetsuit and TT bike). Other than that, I felt pretty good the whole race.