I actually free-styled the whole race, except for a couple of strokes on the first lap when we were swimming into the sun and I couldn't catch sight of the buoy. This was a great swim for me and I was thrilled with this segment of the race. Wonderful way to start the race.

Probably sight more often, I started to tire about mid-way through the second lap and got slightly off-course a couple of times, nothing terrible but enough that it probably added a minute or two to my time.

Took an extra bit of time in T1 to dry off a bit more than usual and put on a long-sleeve shirt. Cold weather and wet clothes = BRRRRR on the bike. The Under Armor shirt worked well last year at this race and it worked well again this year.

More Body Glide on the ankles??? May try some of the spray stuff next year.

Nothing to add here... this is just a flippin hard course.

Practice more hills??? I do ride hills, my new bike courses are chock full of them, they just aren't as steep as those ones today.

T2 time should be good, not much to do here.

Not much - everything went well.

LOL - I would have designed the course differently! Not much I, personally could have done. My legs were toast after the bike and I was surprised that I could actually run the whole distance.

Walked quite a bit, my legs were immediately stiff and sore.


The hills!


This is a well-run local race. Tons of volunteers, tons of water stations and the courses (well at least the bike course) were marked well. Not that this is a reflection at all on the race directors at all, but the traffic cops were all super nice!