Swimming is definitely not my strongest leg and until this race, the swim has pretty much terrified me. The open water practice I've been doing has helped tremendously. The short warm up helped as did my swimming off track, thus away from the pack for the first 50 m. Not getting kicked in the face helped to calm me down. Once i rejoined the pack, I ended up swimming with several people with similar abilities. About 200m in I got this feeling of wanting to pull out of the race. I wasn't feeling like being there whatsoever and was questioning what I was doing there. Decided to continue on to the next buoy and see how I was doing then. By the time I got there, I had forgotten I wanted to quit.

I lost some time sighting after I went so far off track at the beginning. I also did breaststroke around the buoys. I did manage to do some drafting about 3/4 of the way in which I am definitely going to try to get better at. The wave behind me only caught up with about 50m to go (waves were every 5 -6 minutes). Overall I got out of the water with a smile on my face.

Sight more at the beginning instead of trying to get into a rhythm right away. Also, try to draft more.

I did a good job of picking out my bike on the first try, which is usual for me! I had a race marshall yell something at me while running to the mount line, which got me distracted and I dropped my bike. Only lost a couple seconds though. Didn't attempt anything fancy in mounting the bike. Had my bike shoes on and clipped in as per training rides.

Sort out the fancy "get the shoes on while biking" thing I keep reading about :)

I spent a lot of time being passed on the bike. I think I passed three people, all on mountain or hybrid commuter bikes, including one woman who looked about 800 years old and I think she was out for a casual sunday ride and accidentally ended up on a triathlon route. I found I really lost a lot of time on the corners and turns. I also didn't push myself too hard as I wanted to make sure I had my legs for the run (my favourite leg). About halfway through the first lap I felt like bailing. Decided the only way I could justify continuing to eat my "bike fuel" aka jelly beans, was to continue on the course.

Practice cornering and tight turns. Also push harder on the bike as I still had lots in the tank for the run.

T2 went well. Racked bike, put on running shoes, threw off helmet, put on running cap and off I went. I was running for about 50 m thinking I'd forgotten something (even felt my head to make sure I'd taken my helmet off). Overall pretty good decent.

nothing I can think of other than learning to run 5k without needing socks

Run was an out and back course. The people ending their run while I was starting mine didn't look like they were having much fun! I was breathing heavily from the start but kept a pretty good pace. About 2km in, like the other legs, felt like giving up and walking the rest of the run. Got to the halfway mark, looked at my watch and realized there was a chance of beating my time from the February race. Pushed myself to keep going. Didn't have one female pass me on the run and passed lots of guys and gals. Crossed the finish line feeling pretty good by beating my previous time by one and a half minutes.

stop at the water stations to take in at least a sip of water

Lots of walking around in circles and drinking lots of water!


bike and swim training!


I will be back in 2013 to kick this course's butt!