Not sure what was going on with this swim. It was a little tough navigating around one of the swimmers as she was all over the lane, but not too bad. It was nice that they had lap counters for us.

Not sure. I felt good in the water, so I'm surprised at this pace.

I think a good chunk (like, at least a full minute, if not more) of T1 time was actually included in the swim time, because there NO WAY my T1 was only 0:37, as indicated in the results.

Grrrrr There were two waves in this race separated by 15 minutes. So when I got out of the pool, I went to my T area to get the bike gear on. The T area basically was just along the edge of the pool, and the swimmers for wave 2 were all just generally milling about waiting for their start time. That's all good and well, but GET OUT OF THE WAY! grrrr Anyway, the indoor part transition was otherwise fine. Cap and goggles off, socks, shoes and helmet on, and out the door to fetch the bike.

Then we get outside, where it's been raining for the last 12 hours or so. Did I mention the bike racks are in the grass and not on pavement? What a mess. Shoes were soaked before I even reached my bike. We had to run the bikes out to the sidewalk and then mount, and it was pretty much muddy grass the whole way.

There wasn't a lot any of us could do to help this much. The whole transition area was pretty bad.

This course was nice and flat, which was great. There were volunteers at just about every intersection, which was also great. That said, the road surface on the loop around Otter Lake was just about the worst I've ever ridden on; pot holes, huge road cracks, etc., just very rough. Getting to and from the lake was ok, but that loop was horrendous.

Overall, not a terrible ride. I got passed quite a bit at first, but then passed a couple people at the end. Just tried to keep a consistent pace and save something for the run.

Pick a gear and stick with it. I shift too much.

Ok, I know I'm being a huge whiner here, but the transition area in this race truly left a lot to be desired. We were supposed to use the same sidewalk back in to the bike rack area that we used to get out, but the problem was that now there were runners coming out of that sidewalk. So, I decide that I'll stay on the road and just ride along parallel to the sidewalk as not to mow down the runners. There was, at one point, and orange dismount line in the grass, but it is no longer visible from the road due to the rain and mud. So I cruise right past it, hit the brakes and nearly fishtail out of control, regain control and ask the nearest volunteer "Where is the orange line??" She says, "Back there." I inform her that it is no longer visible from the road, and the sidewalk is too narrow (5 feet) to accommodate both bikers and runners safely. She says "Oh, ok." Yeah, ok. So I lift the bike over the curb and run it back to the bike racks. (My sister who was there spectating said that about 5 people did the same exact thing I did.)

Anyway, I finally get to the rack, and go back inside to change shoes and socks. I decided to spend the extra few seconds changing socks and I'm very glad I did. My bike socks were totally soaked. Grabbed the number belt and headed back out. Managed to navigate the grass/mud path out to the sidewalk and was on my way.

Look more carefully for the orange line. Slow down more before hand given the wet roads.

Well, there was no danger of overheating on this run, which was a nice change of pace for me! One big advantage of the rainy weather, anyway! It actually stopped raining about halfway through the run. Pretty good run, I guess. I actually passed someone near the end, so that was good. The always bothersome IT band reared it's ugly head at about the half way point again, but not as badly as in the last race.

Of course, the amusing thing is that this is a good run pace for me, but was dead last in my age group. Typical. :)

Push harder at the end.

Walked around and drank some water. Stretched the IT band.


The weather. The very poor layout of the transition area.


Well, not DFL as I feared, anyway. :)

This is a very small race, so I understand that it's not going to be the most formal atmosphere, which is fine. However, the transition area was so poorly planned that it was very hard to have an really enjoyable race. It was not conveniently located and was borderline unsafe in its setup. I don't understand why we couldn't have used a section of the huge parking lot...??

Anyway, it was an ok race overall. It was my first pool swim, so I have one of those under my belt now. It was also a nice flat course, which I always like! :)