The swim went surprisingly well. I was breathing hard but not panicked or out of breath enough that I needed to pause between laps. It also seemed to go by faster than I expected, perhaps because there was a chance to get out and run (and breathe!) halfway through? At any rate, I was really pleased with my time considering that the swim time included the run between pools and the run to transition.

Check the depth before jumping in to start. I didn't have my goggles all the way on and thought I'd feel the bottom under me when I jumped in. Discovered I was wrong when I unexpectedly went under water. Oops.

Brought a squirt bottle to rinse the gravel off my feet and that was awesome. Putting on my bike gloves takes a little extra time, but the comfort is worth it, I think.

I lost some time trying to get my bike off the rack without dislodging everything on my backpack. I'm not quite sure what to do about that because they specifically asked us to put our stuff in front of our tire rather than off to the side.

This was a nice segment. There were hills, but nothing I couldn't handle and I managed to pass a few people too. It would be fun to do this on a road bike instead of a hybrid, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

My bike tire got caught on someone else's handlebars and I wasted time separating the bikes rather than just leaving it alone. Next time, if nothing is falling off I'm leaving it as is.

Loved this part. I'd heard it was super hilly but I found the hills to be fairly manageable. I felt great at the end and could have went for a while longer, easily.

Met with friends, did some stretches.


Genetics and not having a road bike. :P Realistically, I need to spend even more time on my bike and I'm sure my times would improve, even if it is a hybrid.


Perhaps this is specific to tris, but I was amazed by the number of teenage volunteers on the course who were texting, talking on phones or sitting on the curb with their heads in their laps trying to sleep. I just haven't seen this at running races. Also, a couple of the intersections with traffic lights really needed an adult volunteer to make sure we didn't get run over rather than a lone teen volunteer tucked away on a curb sleeping.