The swim time included the time to climb out of the pool and walk (no running in the pool area kids!) out of the building. The plan was to try to stay relaxed and not push it too much due to the adrenaline of the race. I managed to stay in a pretty good groove, never got breathing too hard. I probably could have pushed a bit harder, but I was feeling good and actually enjoying the swim - last year's swim at this race (which was my first tri) was a lesson in humility and panic, so this was definitely a "corrective emotional experience". It probably also helped that I was a good amount faster than my lane-mate, who I lapped around the 6th lap.

Maybe go a little harder, but I don't think I would have gained much time and I may have jacked my heartrate too high.

Not good - tried to put on the tri-top when soaking wet. I know better. Spent way too much time fighting that stupid thing. Just felt clumsy and uncoordinated the whole transition until I got running with the bike.

Wear the one piece trisuit, or wear the top for the swim.

GIDDYUP!!!! My best ride ever. The nice thing about being a below average swimmer is that there are lots of people to pass on the bike. I counted 28, including a bunch from the previous wave. I was only passed by one guy early on, but passed him back on a hill and never saw him again. What can I say, I loved this ride.

Nothing.

T2 was much better than T1. The T2 time includes running from the dismount line to the rack, and I would bet that my actual transition took about 10-15 seconds. Ripped off the bike shoes, slipped right into the running shoes, grabbed my number and hat and put those on after I started running.

Felt pretty strong heading out of T2. Started picking people off, ended up passing about 30 people, and was not passed by anyone. Now for my whine/gripe: the miles were not marked, and I had a hard time keeping track of my pace as a result. There was a new run course this year, which included 1 1/2 laps around some athletic fields and through some woods. This ended up being kind of disorienting, and at one point I thought I had a whole other section to run through before heading to the finish. I started to get pretty discouraged at that point, and I think my pace may have slowed for a little bit. I had been shooting for a run time under 20 minutes, and by this point I was already over that mark. After the race I was very bummed out about my run time. I was thinking it was an even 3 miles, so it looked like my pace was slower than my long training runs, which made no sense. I started hearing more people complaining about their run times, and then came across a few people with Garmins who said it was more like 3.3 miles. So my time was better than I thought at first, but I still would have liked to have seen my pace closer to 6:30. Something to work on for future races.

My goal had been to beat last year's time (1:17:13) by 10 minutes, which I did not do, but considering that the run was longer this year, I'm happy with the result. I felt especially great about the bike (top 10% of the field, are you freaking kidding me?), and I've got to be happy with how much I've improved in a year - last year I was in the top 38% overall, this year the top 11%. My whining/gripeing about the run course aside, in the end it was a beautiful day and a great start to the race season.