I donned my full sleeved wetsuit for this. Not out of necessity (the water was very comfortable) but for the practice of removing it transition during a race. The horn went off and I took off fast. I had no one around me and no other fast fishes to swim with, so I was on my own with no one to draft off of. I perhaps took off a little to hard and fast because my heart rate and breathing were spiking. Once I was certain I was clear of everyone I had to really concentrate on settling down, catching my breath, and finding a nice swim pace to settle into. The wetsuit really wore down my shoulders, which kinda gets me thinking about looking into a sleeveless suit. On the home stretch I caught up with the back of the girl's wave, but I didn't have to much trouble navigating around them. Eventually my fingertips hit sand. I stood up in a dizzying fashion, oriented myself, and then took off up the beach to T1.

Start closer to the buoy line. I started wide to avoid any chaos, but there was none. Could've saved a few seconds here.

Well, I guess this why I did this race, to practice transitions. This was a pretty crappy transition. The wetsuit didn't exactly slip off my ankles. When I went to lift my bike off the rack my transition bag, which was sitting under my back tire, was preventing me from unracking my bike. It was too bulky to allow it. I could've shook it loose, but I didn't want to knock someones bike off, so I had to get to the other side of the rack and pull the bike out from the opposite direction. In addition to that I could not get clipped in fast enough. Soooo slooow. I guess this why I did this race, so avoid repeating mistakes. Lessons learned. 37th out of 120.

Position transition bag differently.

I always enjoy myself when I race this bike course. Not sure why. Maybe it's just because of the course layout, or because you get to ride by the spectators three times. Whatever it is I was having fun on the bike. The only thing that detracted from it was the inexperienced athletes riding waaay too far left or set up in blocking positions, particularly when they weren't even passing someone. As I approached one rider, who was biking near the median and not passing anyone, I yelled "on you're left." He just gave me an acknowledgement wave and held his position. I blame this and the other rider's behavior on mostly inexperience or lack of knowledge and bike etiquette. I didn't let any of this bother me and more or less just dealt with it.

Nada.

I didn't do my flying dismount primarily because of my uncomfortableness with swinging my leg over the back of the saddle and dismounting. I had this mastered on my old bike but I've just been too unpredictable with my dismounts on this bike in practice to feel confident enough to do it here today. Overall a very average T2. I'm going to be a little slower than some because I slip on socks, but there is still room to improve. 42nd/120

Practice more beforehand.

I always enjoy the run, even when I'm in some amount of pain. There is just something free about no longer being constrained to a bike. At this point I realized that I had only gotten passed once since the race began, and that was coming out of T2, so I knew if I could catch that one guy I would be in the lead (amongst the 30-39M). I caught him a half mile into the run and then continued to motor on. I kept my pace even for the entire course and used a few of the duathlete runners ahead as targets to chase after. Myself and a few others measured the course a tad short, so not sure what was going on there (it's been correct in previous years).

Nothing.

Slow walk towards the food and drink, and then over to my family and friends where we cheered on some others out there that we knew.


Non-efficient transitions.


Nice, small, and well-organized race. Although the race temps can be fickle year to year with it being mid-May I would recommend as a good first triathlon.