Coming out of the water, I was first in my division (a first). Generally, this was a good swim for me. I felt I was swimming strong, without leaving too much on the table, but also not too hard to wear me out. When I came out of the water, I didn't feel drained and was easily able to get into the run to transition without the wobbly, I need to catch my breath feeling.

Nothing.

Transition include a long run (1/3 mile) from the beach up to the transition area, hence the long T1 time. Everything else went pretty smoothly, although I definitely lost about 30 seconds putting on my socks.

Nothing.

Somewhat surprising to me, I came off the bike still in first place in my division. The bike felt good for the whole ride. I got a bit frustrated on a couple of the downhills when I would get passed by some riders, but then not want to "fall back" and lose momentum on the downhill. I had a good, quick dismount (making up for my slow mount).

Nothing. I think my mounts will continue to feel slow until I can learn how to do the flying mount thing, which I guess will mean starting off with my shoes on the pedals.

We had these very specific spots we were supposed to put our bikes, and someone had grabbed mine. This threw me for a few seconds as I deliberated moving his/hers over, but ultimately just threw my bike in the middle and took off! I was pretty fast getting my running shoes on at that point, and then I was off.

Nothing.

Had a good first half out to the turn-around (avg'd a 9:26 pace, at which point I was STILL in 1st plan in my division), and my plan was to negative split the run. However, my legs had other ideas, which was that they wanted to be done. The second half, each mile got progressively slower as my legs started to shut down.

Not exactly sure, but what I would like to do is to have enough left in my legs to finish the second half of the run strong.

Walked around and stretched a bit.


I guess my legs, and getting tired on the second half of the run. Plus, being slow.


Finished third in my division (my first podium finish!). Very excited about this, got some good swag to boot (a second medal, a case of energy gel chews, and a FuelBelt water bottle belt). As to my race, I actually met pretty much all my personal goals: I finished in under 3 hours (and broke through 2:50), and I felt like I had put it all out on the course. I wanted to finish the run in under 1 hour, but I only missed that by 10 seconds, so pretty damn close. The real surprise was my ranking -- I never entertained a podium finish, much less leading the pack from the gun through to the run turn-around. Very happy with this result!

I do have one complaint about the race, though. The post-race food options pretty much sucked. When I finished at about 10:15 am, there was nothing set up (and keep in mind that there were people who would have finished well before me, too). No bananas, no bagels, nothing. At around 11 am, there were some pre-made sandwiches put out, but that was it. There was a grill stand selling burgers and such, but that didn't open up until 11:30, and it was cash only. The problem was that they were trying to sell the "lobster boil" for like $28, but even that didn't start until after 11:30, and, you know, some people don't like/eat lobster. I've seen much better food options at pretty much every other race I done, including little rinky-dink local 5Ks. This was disappointing.