I told myself that I would be going into the water very slowly this race. No more panic attacks! I hopped in the water with my wetsuit and did some test strokes before it started. I Felt good and the goggles were tight. I set the goggles on my head after I got out. I was feeling a wee bit more comfy this morning. We did a time trial for this start as well. I started looking at the length of the buoys and got a little nervous. It looked very far. Sure I have done the distance several times in the pool, but not once in open water this year. Ruh, ruh…I was feeling the nerves again. I was told to go and I walked down the sand and into the water this time. Once I dove in I started to swim. My left goggle filled up! Not this again! I tried a slow crawl and couldn’t do it because of the leaky goggle! Panic again!!! I started doing every stroke they had in the book. I couldn’t fix my goggle either. I said the hell with it and did the best I could. At one point Lake Placid Ironman crossed my mind. I was fearing the worst. There was no way in hell I’d be ready to do the swim there! I finally made it to the end and got out. I Took my time in transition, put on the aero helmet and headed out.

get goggles that work!

The first few miles were great until I remembered I didn’t cut the helmet strap yet. I could still hear “bap, bap, bap” to the right side of my ear and now I had a new noise. When I turned my head to the left it sounded like there was a bee in my helmet. OMG! What if there was????!!!! I finally realized it must have been a sticker coming off the helmet. I was thinking about years back when I was in music class. This would have been a great homemade musical instrument for the class. Turn to the right “bap, bap, bap” Turn to the left “bzzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz”. This got annoying quick! So we are biking pretty fast and all of a sudden we hit this huge ass hill. OMG! I’ve ridden hills, long hills and prepped for them, but I was pretty dang shocked at the grade on this sucker! I think it was more than 18%. 2 people were walking their bikes up it. I stayed in the saddle and kept moving. I gave a big hoot when I got up it and was cheering others on. BRING IT ON!!!! The course was really hilly, but nothing like that first beotch of a hill! They were just very long, SLOW, SLOW, hills! WOW! So I’m peddling along on one of the flats and I shifted “OH SHIT!” My chain popped off going above 20 mph. I thought I was going down, but I quickly got over and fixed it. I went about another 5 miles and it comes off again! GRRRR I was getting frustrated and had grease all over my hands, but I fixed it AGAIN and rode off again. All the people I had passed had just passed me. As the ride continued all of a sudden I noticed my speedfill bottle in between the aero bars was leaning forward. One of the bolts had come out. Just great! Then all of a sudden the second bolt came out! I grabbed the bottle before it fell and didn’t know what to do. I was holding it in between the bars and knew I couldn’t hold it up any more steep hills. I didn’t want to litter because they said there was a $500 fine and it cost me $50. I had a disposable water bottle in my lower cage and found someone to see if they needed it. He said he was willing to hold it for me. Bless his heart. I tucked the aero straw in my jersey, clamped the cage around my aero bar and was able to fit the speedfill bottle in the cage below. About a minute later his bottle flew off the back of his bike so it’s probably a good thing I gave him that water. After that I was pretty happy with how the ride went. I’m lucky to not have been hit by his bottle or worse yet, crash!

rub some mojo on me the night before. IDK!

I got off the bike and did a quick transition (not that I have much to compare to). I was feeling good and wanted to be under a 9 minute pace to keep it under control for the rest of the wknd. We got up the road and the running trail went into the woods. It was very gravely and all of a sudden you are climbing this big hill. CRAP! I actually started walking up it for maybe 30-45 seconds. I questioned myself why I was walking and started to run and kept going. At all the water stops I actually stopped, drank and continued on, instead of my usual frantic gulp it down when running. This friggin run course was scary for my ankles - Very uneven, big rocks, loose gravel, etc….At about mile 3 you start to go downhill ( a long ways). What goes down must come up! Wow that was a big hill to run up (maybe ¾ a mile), but I did and never walked. I think I had a couple more miles to hit when I noticed I was running sub 8 minutes. Wow, I even went sub 7 for a second and realized I better cool my jets! I decided to run hard to the end and away I went. I was very happy with my run.
My running splits 17:34 FIRST 2 MILES
3RD 9:10
4TH 9:15
5TH 7:46
LAST 1.5 MILE:7:44

I think I could have went in a little harder. The more people I saw walk, I started to slow. Not sure why I let this influence me.

went to hotel. Did a lot of stretching to prep for race 3. only laid down for like 20 minutes.