No clue on rank, but I passed a lot of people including some men in the wave 5 minutes ahead. Top 10-20?

I could start to be more aggressive about positioning at the beginning of the swim. I still start to the side and back, expecting to be the slowest. I could move up and take a more direct line. Overall though, loved it!

Dealt with getting into shoes better this time, still not great.

Practice more on getting into shoes, or get different shoes.

Definitely the most contested bike leg I've had lately. I was closer to the front of the pack this time and there was a lot of back and forth, passing and getting passed. They wrote everyone's age on their leg whether they were in a team or not, so it was hard to tell who the real competition was! Everyone was fighting for it, though. Lots of fun.

Get a super expensive tri bike?

It's tempting. On the other hand, I held off and then pulled way ahead of this woman whose fancy Cervelo outfit was worth easily three times my Terry road bike. That was extremely gratifying. I'd lose that if I shelled out for the fancy tri bike. ;)

This transition got a little screwed up because we were racking bikes on floppy wires and the next door guy's bike flopped on my shoes. Also, because the transition areas were completely unsecured, Bu showed up to cheer me on, check out my stuff and ask questions while I was trying to get through T2. Nothing like a 3 year old to liven up a transition!

Give Bu a better hug and kiss before running off.

This run felt way better than recent attempts. Although I won't get splits, the pace felt much faster. I drank less on the bike and avoided a side stitch. Also, I ran with a 16 year old and took a lot of inspiration from encouraging her toward the finish of her first tri. It's amazing how much that helps!

Not a thing.

Walked, drank, ate, went swinging with Bu, cheered for other competitors.


Equipment. Lack of real brick training. I'm wondering about body weight. I could probably run faster if I lost a little weight, but I don't really need to lose weight (I'm 5'8" and 135 lbs) and I'm not sure how good an idea it is to be losing weight just to compete. Sounds like the beginning of an eating disorder. But maybe just 5 lbs for the racing season??


This morning I raced in the Iowa Games triathlon outside Ogden, Iowa. I won't be getting splits on the legs or the transitions because they didn't use timing chips, and I don't think my official race time is right (it was over a minute more than what my watch showed at the finish). But it was still a personal best. The time I registered was 1:18:30 (theirs was 1:19:39), ten minutes faster than my previous best for a sprint tri. The bike leg on this one was a mile shorter, but it was still a much faster race. The swim went great, I was very competitive on the bike leg, and on the run I felt a lot better than I have lately while running. Maybe eventually I'll find out my rank, maybe I won't, I'm not too worried. We took off right afterward to get showers. It was a great race.

And what a funny race it was. Not a USA Triathlon event, so everything was just a little ... different. No security around the transition areas, no numbers on the bikes, no PA system, no race bag goodies, no particular anxiety about following the rules, just your basic no-frills swim, bike, run. The crowd with the tricked out tri bikes, swish wetsuits, etc., was conspicuously absent. A lot of first-timers, milk jugs for buoys on the swim. It was all very Iowa and in fact very nice.