For my first open water swim, I was extremely pleased. The river is very narrow, so you don't exactly feel like you are in some massive body of water. Due to the currents, most people swam along the outside, 15-20 feet from shore. Felt reasonably strong and comfortable during the entire swim. I really didn't notice any effects from the current, but I think that had to do more with my lack of experience......I just kept swimming..
A little trouble with my goggles fogging and thus took a little bit of extra time to spot the exit ramp on the shore.

I need more fitness and better technique to get faster! Also some anti-fog solution for my goggles.

This is a weak point from me, and I probably have some learning and equipment fine tuning to do... I have road racing shoes, not tri specific, and I don't have them pre-clipped into the pedals. So I probably spend a good 20 seconds getting the shoes on, ratcheting them closed, then the helmet, then running on the cleats with the bike, etc. Everything went smoothly, including taking the wetsuit off, but I think I could speed the whole thing up with practice and different shoes.

Tri-shoes, possibly pre-clipped in.

Felt pretty good and passed a lot of people. I have a cycling background (road racing), but have not done a lot of time trials, and I don't have a good fit on my tri bike. When down in the aero bars I was somewhat uncomfortable, especially on the saddle (road saddle, Arione).

I really need to get a professional fitting done to get more comfortable and efficient on the bike.

Again, pretty slow. I think it was a good 50 meter run from the dismount line to where I had to rack my bike. I ran in my bike shoes (speedplay cleats..). I was slow! Then when it came time to put the running shoes on, I have to put socks on otherwise I get bad blisters under my arches from my orthotics.

I think it would be better for me to get my feet out of my shoes while still on the bike, leaving the shoes clipped in, and run barefoot into transition, should be a lot faster than running in cleats. I guess this depends on the surface you need to run on. In this case it was grass, so barefoot would have been fine.
As for the time I took to put my socks on (15 seconds?), not sure what to do about that yet...

This was where I felt the worst. I was tired and had a stitch in my side. I felt like I was running -very- slow for the first half. But once I rounded the turnaround, I felt better, and picked up the pace by quite a bit for the last 2.5km and caught a few people.

I just need more fitness!

Just walked around for a while and ate some fruit. Given the short duration of the race it didn't take too long before you were feeling normal again.


Lack of fitness, need to lose some weight.


This was my first real triathlon (in other words, not a pool swim). I'm hooked. Felt good physically, and more importantly, felt great mentally. Like other multi-sport events I've attended, mostly duathlons, the organization was great, location was great. I can't think of one single complaint. I absolutely plan to go again next year. Only thing I plan to change is that I hope to do the olympic distance next time, and will also call ahead very early to get a room at the local motel so that I can bring the family.