Very pleased with this swim; I glanced at the Garmin when I came out of the water and I was at about 11:40, which is not far from what I do in a pool at this distance. But I was definitely breathing harder than in the pool, so much that on the home stretch I had to take some long breathing breaks kicking on my side. I could never quite get the breathing synchronized.

Not much, I don't think. This was a top-notch swim for me, embarrassing as that is. My improvement here is what made the difference in being three or so minutes faster overall than last year.

Transitions are slow for me here because I'm trying to run - either in bike shoes or barefoot - on a parking lot with a primary surface of broken seashells; it's tough enough on the bike shoes but hell in bare feet (but that's T2).

I was about 30 seconds faster here than last year, which I attribute to getting the wetsuit off quicker. I should spend more time practicing T1, but I don't know how much more I have to gain unless I sprint through it and learn to do the flying mount onto the bike.

I felt like I maintained a pretty decent pace on the bike without going overboard, but I wasn't happy with the result in the end, about two-three minutes slower than last year. NP was 178 so I obviously had more to give, but it felt like pushing harder than that would've turned into a strength workout and I didn't think that'd be conducive on the run.

Well, main item would be to ride the tri-bike but that was in Oxford. We were supposed to go to Oxford last weekend and bring the bike back with us, but with the heat and humidity indexing into the 100s we decided to stay home. I think that would've made at least a little difference.

Slow because of that danged run through the seashells on bare feet. I noticed the people around me didn't do that, so maybe I didn't save any time by twinkle-toeing through the shells into transition.

Nothing...well, flying dismount?

Pretty good run for me, coming in at under a 10:00 pace which was the overall goal. I only walked briefly through the water stops, kept up a reasonable pace throughout, picked it up a little at the end. I felt good for most of this; the overcast sky made a huge difference at keeping the sun and temperature at bay. I do wonder how much of a factor my slower bike leg was in having this good run.

Not too much; this is the way I'd like all my run legs to go.

Walked around a bit, to keep moving. Walked into the lake up to my neck to cool off.


Wrong bike, slower than expected transitions.


Love this race; I could almost rate this as too easy because of the short bike leg, but it's just fun to do and it doesn't take a lot of time to finish or train for. Comes at a good "in between" time for me in the season. This group has been doing it so long they have it down pat. Great volunteers too, I don't know where they get them all.