I could have easily gone faster, but I am still struggling with pacing. I didn't realize how quickly the swim was going by. I got to the second to last buoy and realized that I still had tons left in the tank. I'd been holding too much back to make sure I finished since I was thinking (erroneously) that open water would be tougher.

Swim faster.
I'm happy with the performance since it was my first time swimming in open water, but I totally could have smoked my time if I hadn't been overly cautious and slightly lost as to how close to the finish I was.
For next year I'll do a couple of open water swims to get used to spotting. With another year of training under my belt I'll have a better internal feel for how fast I can push it without crashing.
Also, I will be sure to put myself down as a faster swimmer so that I don't have to avoid so many people on the course.

Yeah, didn't know what I was doing.

Know what to do.
I was four minutes away from breaking the top 100. I spent 5 minutes total in transitions. Next year I'll practice this stuff and shoot for a 1:45 T1 and a 1:00 T2.
It really sucks to be slower just because I'm not as good at putting on a helmet quickly.

I felt pretty good about the bike. Vomited at mile two. Managed to avoid hitting either myself or the bike. Just lost a little bit of the sea water i'd taken in- felt significantly better afterwards.

I could have pushed a little more in the middle when we turned into the headwind.
Again, I'm happy with this performance considering I got my first road bike the last week of February. I have made substantial progress since then. Judging from the gains I've made the past few months I ought to crush this time next year.

Didn't know what I was doing.

Know what to do.
Embarrassingly slow

Absolutely fell apart on the run. My right foot looks like it got caught in a lawnmower I had so many blisters at the end of this run. I ran this slower than I've ran anything in my life I'm pretty sure.
Complete self-destruction. This was a very disappointing run segment since the limiting factor was the blisters which made me run with a limp pretty much the whole time. In training I was running so much faster than this- It's very frustrating to be inhibited by poor preparation instead of by my physical limits.

Actually train for the run portion....
Break in new shoes for more than three weeks...

Drank a bottle of water. Ate a clementine and a banana.


My blisters. The fact that I'm a crappy runner.

For my first triathlon I'm very happy. There were disappointing aspects of my performance but overall it was a great experience and I definitely learned a lot. I'm very pleased to have gone from totally out of shape in February to where I am today, all while not failing out of medical school.

I'm very curious how I would have placed if I could have done just a few things better...
1. Spotting during the swim - I can swim this distance substantially faster, but the open water aspect made me nervous and the combination of playing it conservative and not realizing how close I was to the finish cost me oodles of time
2. Transitions - a pair of awful transitions cost me dearly in terms of overall time and placing
3. Coming to race with newish shoes and the starts of some blisters that hadn't had time to heal - This was the most costly mistake that I'll certainly never repeat. I'm a substantially faster runner than most of the people at this race so it was depressing to end up limping through this section because of several bloody ulcers and watching people pass me who race this distance slower than my training pace.
I'll be back next year with a score to settle.