Well, the cool thing is there were 18 waves in front of me so you could watch how the other swimmers were doing and how the were exiting. The bad thing is that you had to stand in your group three waves in advance in your wet suit sweating to death. Two minutes before your wave takes off you jump into the 72 deg. water and tread. I tried to position my self to the back off the pack so I would not get killed when to buzzer went off. I still got pushed around, but at least not kicked. The water was alot more choppy than anything I had ever swam in before and I spent the first 150 to 200 meters swimming with my head out of the water. Every time I tried to put my face in the water and then try to breath to my side a wave of water was there for me to breath in. It took to about the first bouy to get in to a rythem. I had to breath to my left the whole time to keep the sun out of my eyes and to keep track of the pier which I was using most of the time to sight. I free styled 80 to 85 percent and only breast stroked to sight and to let faster peaple by to avoid getting kicked in the face. The wet suit and drafting made this a pretty fun swim in the end.

More yardage in the pool and open water practice.

Other than the the transition area being a half mile on asphalt away it went well. I had a little problem getting my suit of due to my race bracket on my wrist other than that there was not much else I coul change.

Nothing

The course was fast and senic. There were quite a bit of tall bumps in the road as well as a lot of pot hole fillins witch kind of made it an obstacle course at times. There were times on the course were it felt you were flying and it took very little effert. There were more people with flat tires then I had ever seen before. I was starting to think when was I going to get a flat tire.

The course had a perfect mix of rolling hills an flats. I thought racing down lake shore was an absolute blast. There was not one time on the bike were I was not having fun.

Nothing

Took my time at transition to make sure I had every ting and drank some gatorade with some E-CAPs.

nothing

Once again the Run was very hot, no clouds in the sky and no shade. I did manage to run the whole route with only walking at the aid stations were i would drink a water and gaterade then pour another water over my head.

Getting into the running transtion felt pretty good this time and was easier than the last race to settle into a pace. After mile three it was about 2 mile before mile 4 which came twice. Let me tell you that when you think you only have 2.2 miles left and you havn't got to the 10 k turn around sign yet and then when you are on your way back and then you see the 4 mile sign again you just want o pass out because you still have 2.2 more miles and you are no closer to the finsh then what you tought. From the the second 4 mile sign to 5 mile sign was absolutely brutal. It felt like 5 miles in the desert with no water. Mile 5 to 6 went much better except for the face I tought I had to go much farther based on the cource map so I reserved some energy to farther. We all tought the race finsh was on the other far side of the hilton. If only I new it was only One block away I could have ran a little fast a little earler. But by that time my race was already ran. The run was hot, but I finished tired and smiling.

Train with more miles in the heat and more bricks

After I was finished with the race I hung out at the finish and waited for my friends Jim and Marc to cheer them in. Jim started his race 20 minutes after my race started and Marc's was 4 minutes before mine this was also his first olympic distance race. We were all very excited for him when he finished and so was he.

About 20 minutes after our race were over I started to get a pretty bad cramp in my stomach. So i spent some time hunched over and hanging out thinking I would get over it. Then I stood up to wake around and quickly sat down agian. Jim told me the is no shame in going to the medical tent to get checked out so thats what i did. To make a long story short I had bad gas and I got a cold gaterade out of it.


The heat and not knowing the course.


I will do this race agian next year. It was very well done and organized. Next ime we are going to come down on friday and leave on monday so we can stay and enjoy the activitys and beer.