The swim was great for me. I passed the two people that went in front of me within the first 3 lanes. I felt very strong, smooth, and consistent throughout the swim.

Nothing for this one. I need to practice flip turns for my next pool swim Tri, I think this will be the biggest positive impact on my swim time.

Forgot to put my helmet and glasses on and was down my rack with my bike when a volunteer yelled "helmet" at me. Luckily I was only about 10 feet away from my gear and was able to get both and put them on quickly. This probably cost 10-15 seconds. Everything else was good.

Don't forget your helmet!

The bike was pretty decent. The biggest thing that got in the way for me was that I broke the cardinal rule of "don't try anything new on race day"! I had the brilliant idea that I would use gatorade in my bottle for the bike for the extra calories/electrolytes/etc. Bad idea! I was not used to this and it felt thick and syrupy, completely unlike water. I ended up drinking less than I wanted to because of this and it started to upset my stomach a little. I was able to work through it without much issue, but I definitely will settle for water next time. Can't say there is any need for sports drink on a 12 mile ride anyway. I passed several people on the bike and only got passed once, I felt good about the bike overall - just need to continue training hard here.

Don't do anything on race day that you haven't done training!

T2 went well. Got my bike shoes off and running shoes on very efficiently. Grabbed my hat and race belt and ran out of the transition area putting them on as I ran. Not much to improve here for the method I used.

All was well as I did it. For future tri's I need to work on leaving shoes clipped in. I had not practiced this at all, however, so I did not attempt. Way to take my own advice!

My run was slow, but it is hard to complain. I'm having issues with my right knee due to ITBS, so my plan going in was to walk/run it. I ended up coming out of T2 right behind a guy with one knee completely braced and the other one with a band around it. He was jogging solid 11:00/min miles very steady and consistent. We must have passed each other 4 or 5 times as I would run past him and then he would go past me when I would walk. I could have put a lot more into this run, but it would have only caused more pain that I have to work through in the 6 weeks before my next race. Overall I am very happy with my run based on my current condition. I could feel that my knee was improving and a week of no running is going to do wonders. Next time I'm going to kill it!

Show up healthy

Hugging the wife!


gatorade instead of water on the bike, knee issues on the run.


Although this was my first triathlon, I can definitely say it was well run. Tom Ryan from Dallas Athletes was there dishing out plenty of encouragement, thanks, and advice. All of the volunteers were great. This is definitely an event that I would do again!