The water was very cold and choppy. I started towards the back of the pack in my wave and it was hard to sight because the buoys weren't very large and the waves were hitting me in the face. I need to work on swimming more with my arms to replicate the feel of having the wetsuit on so I will practice more with the pull buoy to try to simulate that. I also need to really practice sighting and maybe get a new pair of goggles that I can see more in.

It was difficult to get out of the water and run through the mud into transition. Once there, my stuff was dry even though it had been raining. It took a bit of time to get my wetsuit off and dry off and put on my bike jacket and gloves. Looking back I probably didn't need the gloves because it wasn't cold enough for that.

The bike was very windy. I started out at a slower than normal pace because of the rain and wet roads. But once I got comfortable I felt good about using my new bike in a race scenario! I almost hit a family of deer running by so it taught me to be very alert. I was pleased with the bike performance.

Coming into T2 was tricky off the bike because you had to run in your bike shoes downhill and it was slick and muddy in parts. I took a pee break as normal during T2 which probably slowed me down some.

The run was 2 out and backs of 5k. There was a part of the run of about a 1/4 mile that was all through the mud in the woods which was kind of weird. Other than that I didn't have too much trouble with the transition from bike to run and I didn't push the run pace too hard.

Overall this was a great race experience. Because it was in the rain and wind, it got me ready for any kind of race day conditions. It could only get better than that. My times were faster than my first tri and slower than the second. I attribute this to it only being a training race and the fact that I was sick with a cold (not to mention the weather conditions). But given all that I was very pleased with my performance