This was a self-seeded time trial start, with 3-4 people diving in at a time. I seeded myself approximately in the top third; as a result, I was mostly surrounded by men for most of the race. I knew that might meant I'd get jostled around a bit, but it was worth it to me to get an earlier start and not get stuck behind slower/less confident swimmers.

As I figured, this did wind up being the roughest swim I've had, contact-wise, but it was manageable. The roughest parts were at the turn buoys, which often result in a lot of carnage anyway. I just kicked harder when I felt people trying to swim over me and surged forward to get to clear water. My goal for the second half of the first lap was to get my breathing and HR under control so I could stop breathing every stroke and instead breathe bilaterally like I normally do while training. Finally was able to do that in the last 200M or so of the first lap, which made the second lap a lot more comfortable.

Nothing. I'm happy with this swim given my lack of good hard swim training.

5/13 AG, 63/221 OA

Ok, so this included the crazy run back through the park to transition, which they said was .38/mile but probably was actually a bit longer. The RD had suggested bringing a pair of shoes of some kind to run in, so I brought a pair of Crocs I found lingering in my parents' basement. Glad I did. Before the start of the race, I had heard someone say they were planning to take their wetsuit off right after getting out of the water rather than do that whole run in it. Made sense to me, so I did that as well. Struggled a bit briefly to get the darn thing off my heels (out of practice! Haven't worn it since April of last year) but then I was off and running. Once in transition, I gave my feet a quick wipe with a towel, put on socks, bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses, and jammed a pack of Honey Stinger chews in my back pocket, grabbed my bike and was off.

Nothing, probably. The only downside to taking the wetsuit off before the long run to transition was that it got heavy carrying it.

So the bike course turned out to be a LOT more difficult than I anticipated. Almost nonstop rolling hills with some challenging climbs. Road surface was smooth in some spots, rough in others, and really treacherous in others (luckily there were signs warning of the really rough patches). Some spots were still wet from the rain that had stopped an hour before the race, but other areas were in the sun and had dried. Lots of wind - very rarely did it ever seem to be BEHIND me. Almost always seemed to be a head or crosswind. Just kept cranking away; tried to blast down all the downhills when safe to do so (hit a max speed of 31.6mph at some point) and spin up the climbs without totally trashing my legs. Passed numerous people, including 3 or 4 women, and only had 3 really fast looking women pass me. Ate the pack of Honey Stinger chews about 20 minutes in and drank 24 oz of water.

The bike is usually my weakest link (not helped by my minimal bike training) and this was a tougher course than I was expecting, so I'm satisfied with this.

2/13 AG, 25/221 OA

My best performance of the day, rank-wise. haha I always try to spend as little time in T2 as possible, and today was no exception. Quickly switched shoes and removed my helmet, then grabbed my race number belt, another pack of Honey Stinger chews, and my visor and ran.

Nothing.

Pushed hard for most of the run, trying to steadily pick people off. At this point there were sprint and oly runners on the course, so I didn't know who was in which race (or which lap they were on, for the oly), so I just focused on passing everyone I could. I also had no idea where I was at on the course since there were no mile markers and I wasn't wearing my Garmin. I would've been curious to see later what my mile splits were, but at the time I was glad I had no idea how much further I had left (on the first lap, anyway). Took water or Gatorade at each of the water stops and ate the pack of Honey Stinger chews about 10 minutes into the run. My feet were hurting a bit and I felt like I was running out of gas towards the end of the first lap, but felt a bit rejuvenated once the second lap was underway.

When I had hit the split button on my watch going into T2, I thought my watch had said 2:07 and my heart had sunk a little thinking my goal of going sub-3 would be REALLY close since I figured my run would probably be in the 52-53 minute range. I refused to look at my watch at all during the run - just kept pushing as hard as I could without blowing up - but later thought, "Wait...maybe it said 2:00:07." So as I approached the finish line and saw the clock time was 2:55:xx (knowing I had started about a minute or so back), I was absolutely thrilled.

Nothing. After the windy and hilly bike course, this was all my legs had left in them to give, and overall the run felt MUCH better than at the NJ State Tri (which had a much flatter bike course but was WAY warmer and very humid) so I was happy about that too. Was fun to run through the amusement park I spent so much time in as a teenager. Doesn't look or smell much different!

Walked around, downed a bunch of water, and ate a banana and these rice cake-style things made of corn. My dad is the fire chief of a local volunteer fire dept, so naturally most of the Great Adventure firefighters and EMTs know him, so we spent some time talking to them (and another FF from his dept who did the sprint). I'm sure glad I didn't know beforehand that the lake we swam in has a lot of snapping turtles in it! Including one that is apparently strong enough to have bit through a metal cable!


Lack of structured, hard training, as usual


This was a good, lower-key race. Started a few minutes late and could use a bit more in the post-race food and activity department, but otherwise a fun race in a unique venue. Great way to end my season!