The start area was narrow with starting waves of 50 each. This was quite a learning experience for me since I have never been swam over in the water, nor have I had to swim over someone else. Both happened. I was finally able to calm down and pace myself after the first 150m. The first half of the swim was not good, as I had no rhythm, felt lost and rushed (was sighting fine). The swim back to shore was much better and I was able to pick up my pace a little, especially since the wave had a chance to spread out by that point. Had to walk the last 30m because I had caught several people from the wave before me, and got boxed in.

Not sure, there was so much to take in with that swim experience, I guess more practice to stay calm.

T1 felt good. I did not sprint to transition from swim exit, and I did take the time to wipe off my feet before putting socks on. I did have a problem with tightening the BOA system on my cycling shoes... wet hands were the culprit. I got them as tight as I could to exit T1, and had to tighten more on the bike.

Practice tightening the shoes with wet hands.

I went into the race wanting to attack the bike course as hard as possible, but once on the bike I convinced myself to stay conservative on the flats and climbs and take advantage of the downhills (I'm still a big guy). I stayed with that plan through the ride to save some energy for the run.

Only got passed by a handful of guys on tri bikes, so I was happy with the conservative pace that I held.

Ride hard.

Said a prayer, and took off for the run.

Not much. I was comfortable with how T2 went.

Ok, so let me first say that I had never ever ran a 5k before this event. The longest distance that I had ran before was 2 miles, and I pulled a butt muscle and stopped the run. So needless to say, this was going to be an adventure no matter what happened.

As for the run... well, it was as I expected. It sucked. Where do I begin? After the transition from the bike to the run, I had to figure out where my legs were, and my HR was near capacity, so a walk was in my future. When I started my first of many walks, I realized how badly I had to pee, which I dont know where that came from because I was sweating pretty good, and did not have a ton of fluids (just 20 oz. on the bike), but anyways, I was in a predicament, do I stop at a porta john, do I pee in the suit or try to hold it. I really had no choice in my decision, as there was no porta john around, and I did not want to pee on the new shoes, so I held it... not comfortable. I had also developed a side cramp after starting the run, which I was trying desperately to get rid of. The first 1.5 miles were bad, as there was a lot of walking and some spurts of running, mainly because I felt like a bum walking and getting passed so much. At the half way point, the cramp went away, I got to dump a cup of water on my head, and I felt better, except that the bladder was going to burst, but I trekked on run and had a much better pace on the way back.

In all honesty, the run portion did not seem to be 3 miles, which was probably due to my mind being pre-occupied to worry about how far I had gone.

Pee in the suit!!! Oh and I guess practice more of the 5k distance.

Grabbed some water and hit the porta john.

I can't complain too much... this was my first triathlon and first 5k, all due in part to losing 80 lbs since January, and feeling comfortable enough to compete in something so physically demanding, and I loved every second of it.


I can't wait until the Chicago Triathlon in 3 weeks!