Swim was a rectangular course along the beach. I decided to play it safe since I had zero experience swimming with others and was quite nervous based on the stories I’ve heard. I hung back in the pack and waded out after the starting siren sounded and was less than knee deep when someone swam into me. Not a great start – I waited for some space to free up around me and then I began my swim. I was so worried about my position and the position of others, I had quite a struggle for the first quarter of my swim. I struggled with a rhythym and had trouble breathing properly: A couple of times early on, I turned my head to take a breath and instead took in water. I did a side stroke a couple of times just to get in some air. It took awhile before I could calm down and settled into a nice easy stroke. For the most part, I was not close to others and could maintain my stride easily. Just when I began feeling like I was in a comfortable training swim, I would get close to someone else and begin worrying again. Am I swimming into someone else's path? Is the person swimming next to me know that I'm there? What if they run into me? I worried about EVERYTHING. I need to get LOTS more comfortable swimming with others if I hope ever to gain a little speed. I'm capable of more, I just need to figure out how to get through the people. How do you maintain composure while being kicked, hit, and grabbed? Is this not a very common occurrence and I’m being overly panic-stricken???? Anyway, my final time in the swim was 25:16 for 750 mtrs. Lots of time for improvement, but to be quite honest, I didn't care about the time, I just wanted to make it through unscathed!

More practice swimming with others.

T-1 is also an ordeal for me. I ride a cheap Huffy mountain bike with no aero-bars, no clipless-pedals, and odd looking tires. The reason I mention this is that I bike in my running shoes and in T-1, it takes me forever to get my feet dry enough to get my socks and shoes on. I’m concerned that if my feet are too wet, I’ll blister during the run. The bulk of my 4:18 was spent drying and putting on shoes and socks. Any suggestions to improve this would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know - I'm going to have to think hard on improving T1

Bike went exceptionally well for me. Ended up with a 14.9 average, which is faster than I’ve ever gone. I wonder how fast I could ride on a real bike??? There was one section with a sharp left turn coming off a pretty fast decline. Someone in front of me slammed on the brakes to a slow crawl going around the corner and caused me to lose much of my momentum. I was so angry that I had a tremendous amount of adrenaline going through the final (and most difficult) stretch.

Nothing

T2 is no big deal for me. Helmet & gloves off, visor on. I walked through T2 so I could catch my breath going into the run.

Nothing

I probably expended too much energy in the bike, because I was pretty tired going into the run. Running is difficult for me and I envy those who make it look effortless. I hope that with a little persistence and some more miles, it will become easier. I ended up with a time of 37:05, or 11:58 per mile. I improved over my duathlon time a couple of weeks ago, so I’m not complaining, but I walked several times and I have lots of room for improvement.

Improve pace and stride

Regular workout routine stretch


Experience and practice


Race was delayed due to fog and road closure detour