I was very nervous about the swim and probaby more than I should of been. This race I was using as a warm up for Culver in July to judge my fitness. I started off pretty good and then I went to site the bouy and lost my concentration. Started swimming side stroke and it was tough to switch back to freestyle. At one time I was decent but I have steadily gone to the sidestroke more and more. Disappointing but at the same time I know I can swim the distance. I just need to swim freestyle the entire way and my time will come down quite a bit. Going in I wanted to be between 10-15 min's for my first open water swim of the year and no real swim training since Chicago last August.

I will take the time under 10 min's but I need to swim freestyle the entire way. I just need to suck it up and go. I say average because that is about what I have done my last 3-4 races. So that would be average. I just need to swim more in the pool at race pace to get used to the excitment of the race at the beginning.

The transition was set up very different than any other race I have done. Our bikes were left on the side of a road the length of the lake. My bike was at the opposite end of the swim finish so I had 200+ yrds to run to get to my bike. I was probably slower than I would of liked once I got to my bike but it was a long run. My bike split started right after I got on my bike and road the way back towards the swim finish and then out on to the course. Others who had their bikes at the swim finish could ride the length of road I had to run.

Nothing really.

I didn't really know what to expect riding thru a neighborhood but before the race people we talking about the hills. Very hilly and probably the toughest bike course I have competed on. I think I did pretty well pushing the bike. I have nothing around me to train for a course like this so I was pleased overall with my effort.

Just more bike time.

I am not sure how I took this much time but I knew there were some big hills during the run and I needed to make sure I was hydrated enough and had my breath. It was pretty hot at this time and I didn't want to suffer.

Drop the bike and go.

Wow. Hilly. I was told of one hill that was a killer. Looking back I don't remember much of the course ever being what I would consider flat until the last 1/2 mile and the first 1/2 mile. Other than that it was up and down hill and these were big hills. I walked a little bit up the first major climb but was able to run the rest of them. It was nice along the way that a guy was outside his house spraying a hose on us as we went by and we went by twice. Much needed. My legs really came to me with about 1 mile to go. I was able to pick up the pace and was probably close to 8 min miles at the end. For comparison I ran a 1/2 marathon with an average of 8:35 miles and this was about 9 min miles and only 2.5 miles long.

Hill training would be nice.

My transition area was at the finish so I grabbed water and gatorade and went to the shade to cool off and wait for Marc and Eric.


Heat, challenging course, fitness.


I would like to do this race again. Very nice people and an unsanctioned race that was put together 9 years ago as a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society in memory of a friend and neighbor. It has grown more than they thought it would and this was over double the number of participants from last year. Going in I was looking for 1:10 as a goal with the course site unseen. I was just over that by a few seconds but had I known the course I think I would of wanted to be under 1:15 and consider that successful. So I am very pleased with my results. Sure my swim could of been better but the bike and run with the course the way it was are acceptable. This does give me some confidence going into Culver since I was at 1:10 there last year with about the same distances. Culver is alittle longer in all three events but not much.