I still have trouble with my open water swimming. I think my problem is that I start great, but then my form erodes over the timespan. I didn't do a lot of swimming in preparation.

Holly had a good 4 minutes on me in the swim. She's a better swimmer and every race we've been in she always beats me in the swim.

Swim more, more open water swimming, and figure out why I'm so terrible in open water compared to in a pool. Work on that form.

Never had a problem with slow transitions.

Work on my flying mount again so I can do it.

I was really surprised with my time. It was much better than I expected it to be. I had ridden my bike only once before this race since Vineman, which was end of July, so my bike fitness was way down. Also that time I rode my bike was earlier in the week, two days after giving a double dose of red blood cells. I had to cut that ride short since I almost fainted. It was stupid to donate blood, but my Red Cross had the ALYX machine that week and I wanted to donate since I haven't in a long time.

I passed Holly pretty early on. Her transitions take longer and I'm much, much faster than her on the bike.

Oh yeah. I forgot to charge the battery on my Garmin so I had no bike computer. I went totally by feel for my cadence.

- Don't donate blood before a race
- Actually train for the race
- Make sure your bike computer battery isn't dead

I think I hit the mat wrong somewhere so my T2 time is combined with my run. My transition was pretty fast, but not 1 minute.

I felt that I needed to pee, but thought that I could hold it for the run since I peed in my wetsuit before. I was wrong.

This is where things fall apart. My need to pee increased tenfold while on the run. Lots of things crossed my mind on top of, "This sucks!" One thought was peeing while running. For some reason I didn't the race was important for me to do that since maybe there will be a porta potty. At mile 2 it was getting serious. I thought about using a bush. Unfortunately, the run went through a neighborhood and it seemed all the neighbors were up and watering their lawns. Crap. I didn't want to get in trouble. It got so bad that I was holding my bladder area and had to walk a few times since running made it hurt more. I was given words of reassurance by other participants that I could "do it", but that left a bitter taste in my mouth. "Of course I can 'do it'. I should be able to run this no problem, but it's my bloody bladder!" I was getting frustrated.

No... porta potties...until...MILE 3. Then a woman entered just when I arrived. After she was done I rushed in, emptied the bladder, and bolted out of there. This cost me quite a few precious minutes.

After that my run was good, but could have been better. I was still feeling sore and my ankles were acting up, but after the halfway point I felt a lot better and did well on the run. I was still dealing with some tightness. In my runs post-blood donation but pre-race I was experiencing ankle soreness and shin splints, which I haven't gotten in a long while. I surmised that I needed new shoes since I racked up a lot of miles on my existing ones.

Also two days before the race I did the the Los Angeles YMCA stair climb. That's 74 flights of steps. I wasn't really sore from it, but I imagine it affected me.

Here's a quick summary of things I should have done different:

- Pee when you can
- Don't donate blood before race day
- Make sure to have broken in pair of shoes that aren't worn out
- Don't climb the tallest building in Los Angeles the same week

Walked around for a little bit to get out the muscle tightness.


Man. There's so many things, but I'll just copy them from the other segments.

- Don't donate blood before a race
- Actually train for the race
- Make sure your bike/run computer battery isn't dead
- Eat a good meal before racing. Don't forget food.
- Pee when you can
- Make sure to have broken in pair of shoes that aren't worn out
- Don't climb the tallest building in Los Angeles the same week


They really need more porta potties on the run...

Needless to say Holly just barely squeezed by with a minute to go. If I hadn't waited for the bathroom I'm sure I would have won, but it's all good. No use complaining since a lot of the factors that went against me were my own fault, and honestly I still would have done the stair climb and I still would have donated blood. This was a terrible race for me, but a good learning experience for next season.