I was hoping I was faster than this given I did only one little moment of freaking when someone swam over me cross-wise, but otherwise, I kept swimming, very little breast stroke, and my sighting was pretty good. booo that it still took me 54 minutes. the first red turn buoy came up on me surprisingly fast - that had me very encouraged about how fast I was swimming. somehow between looking at the water and actually getting in, I forgot that it wasn't an out and back, it was swim out, swim back an equal distance beyond the water entrance, then swim back to T1.

Toward the end of the swim the water was really churning as a lot of swimmers were around me all headed for the exit. I discovered I swallowed a lot of water - more than on any swim before, but I realize that even going five minutes faster means more people at the exit, plus all the olympic people now mixed in, and I wasn't breast stroking it. was happy with my reaction -- "this is good training for Florida. think about how to avoid the water swallowing" rather than, "OMG! I'm going to DIE!!"

uh, nothing given this was pretty good for me - by a whole whooping 2 minutes (although I swear I swam racine in 53). all I can do is keep swimming during the week. I also need to start making two loops of the Boerne Lake swim for the next three weeks to make 2.4 seem as short as this seemed -- well, really, didn't seem short, but I never said, "holy crap, I have a lot left to go!!"

removing wet suit was a little tough as the strippers had some trouble with the wrists. I will need to make sure to put on body glide for the sake of the strippers next time.

body glide on wrists for the strippers

with any loop, you don't have wind all the time, but when you are riding uphill and trying to navigate chip seal, it was a nasty wind. Because it was so cold out, the ride started with a lot of people farmer blowing on the bike as everyone's noses were running. when I fist started riding, I though, oh my, I am cold. this is cold. but the wind did dry out my swim clothes and other than the runny noise parade, wasn't too bad temp wise. road condition was something else. I was riding 22 mph on the nice surface first loop, 23 mph second loop, but as soon as you take the right turn at mile 15 (maybe little under that), the chip seal and road condition was so awful that 22 dropped to 16. the bike rattled like crazy, and as Lacey said, "you might have pooed your pants without knowing it given it was so bumpy and your whole body was being shaken." I saw two major crashes where the ambulance had to come pick up the people - always the guys. but the chip seal is such an awful surface that taking your eyes of the road for a second could spell disaster. really horrid road conditions that back 14ish miles.

I may have to rent some zipps for race day. while waiting the 2.5 hours for my bike to be fixed on Saturday, I sat at the bike shop and read an article about zips. apparently they make the bumpety, bumps not quite to hard on your whole body.

I took too long doing this transition - mostly because I stopped to put my bike classes back in their case so protest them from god knows what, and then ran with my bike jersey so had to empty all the pockets before I started running.

just change shirts -that would be a lot faster than emptying out the pockets

my legs were pretty rubbery the first 3/4 mile, then I forgot about them and found a pace - but it was getting humid so every water stop I grabbed some water and dumped it on myself to keep cool (having read an article on the airplane home from CA that you need to dumb on your core, not just your face/head to keep cool. I don't know that it really helped, but it sure did make my shoes wet as all get out and I soon began to rue not putting on running socks in T2 that better soaked up the water.

I did take in some orange juice via orange slice at the top of the big hill on lap 1 and 2. on lap 3, grabbed a banana at the same spot, but the banana was nasty on a run so spit it out. on a bike ride, I do like bananas, run, turns out not. had been running at a really good pace until the last 2 miles. the steep hill at 2 miles from the end on 4th loop mixed with the quickly rising humidity got me and I needed to use port a loo with 2 miles left. I bet mile 12 was 16 minute mile. that last mile, I would guess back to around 8 minute mile as despite the squish, squish, squish in my shoe and overheating, it was finish line in site.

put on running socks in transition. change into a running shirt too as it does not hold water so much and cling to you.

crabbed two ice cold waters at finish, then went to the tank where they keep water and took some of that water and dumped it on my head. then got another bottle (ice had melted, but still almost ice cold) and dumped it over my head.

I reviewed the stats post race. Only three people in my age group biked faster than me. only three ran faster. none of the three bikers ran faster or vice versa. oh that darn swim. if i would have swam just five minutes faster. i don't seem to be getting better and while I do save on panic quota, it doesn't seem to make me faster to swim more.


the bike - i need to spend more time on bike these next few weeks and get some rental wheels for the race to help with shock absorption. need to make better clothing choices too.


the awful chip seal really stinks. lots of happy volunteers, which was awesome. would have liked to have someone handing out sunscreen as you left T1 or T2 (especially T2) as I put sunscreen on before the swim, but by the run it was all washed away. although overcast, I still got burned on my face and neck.

the medal was pretty lame, which was disappointing as I just spent six hours kicking my butt and did 70.3 miles. I like a medal! and it was not a low cost race so something more than a tiny HEB logo would have been nice. also, the t-shirts did not acknowledge my 70.3 either. staying with the t-shirt theme, they messed up on that too and gave me a men's shirt rather than a women's shirt, but told me I could exchange it for a women's at the finish area after the race. I actually did bring my men's shirt to the finish area after I finished (which was within a very reasonable time) only to find they had handed out all the women's shirts to to volunteers in addition to giving all the volunteers volunteer shirts. come on man!

this race was funny as they first forgot to give me a race chip so I had to go back to get one after I had already left (i should have double checked when I picked up the packet), then they also gave me the wrong color swim cap (no worries, I have been to enough races I knew it didn't matter if I still jumped in with my age group even with the wrong color cap - or so I thought. it was a bit of a problem as two volunteers got into an argument over whether or not it mattered on race morning). waiting for race to start in the morning at water's edge, i was glad for the mix-ups as I first thought, gee, that's a lot of little things that have gone wrong, maybe that's a warning? ...but then things happen in threes. messed up bike, no chip, wrong swim cap. oh yeah, I am good to go. no flats, crashes, or otherwise for me! and so it was.