I find it hard to believe that the water was '77.9' degrees but thats a different story.......Took first 200 out at about 75% to see if anyone would keep up. At first marker, there was one person I tucked in behind him. Followed right on his feet around the first turn. Started to figure out my game plan on when to go around him. I felt like we were going to slow as it was tkaing no effort to keep up on his feet so i went around him. He immediatle sped up and swam next to me for another 200M. Not to smart to swim side by side so I dropped back behind him. At the second turn he took a slightly wrong line and I sped up. He corrected his line and jumped in right behind me. I wasn't going to let him stay there or pass me so I sped up and ended up out of the water about 10 seconds ahead of him.

Not much. Decent time with not a lot of effort.

Long run from lake exit to Transition including a nice 25 meter section of Johnny on the spots that were fun to run by after being used all morning..............

Not much. 1:40 was the pretty much the same as all the others in the first wave.

Course was 2 miles long. Though it was a USAT santioned event and ultramax was running it, they still didn't correct it. Went out with a huge lead and wanted to hold it until the 180 degree turn around on the little out and back jaunt. Got caught right before that by three riders who were not really following drafting rules. Like always my legs didn't get going until about 30 mins into the ride. After that it was much better. Only been training for a month so overall and hate hills, so though compared to others around me it looked bad, it wasn't too bad. Didn't eat the GU I had with me. Thought I would be ok without it and didn't want to upset my stomach.

Push a little harder. Maybe I went a bit too easy, but when your doing it you never know.

Decided to put socks on since I had 6 miles to run and I really ripped my feet up without socks on my first Olympic distance race.

Good run. Felt good from the start. Caught some guy that was like 30 seconds ahead of me. Started to cramp a little around mile two and started to doubt that I could hold my current pace. After i had passed up the first 2 water stations, grabbed some water and splashed the rest on me. Slowed down a bit. The guy that I had passed, passed me by. I started to feel better so I started winding in the guy I was playing cat and mouse with and hung about 15 yards behind him. We were catching another runner about 100yds ahead of us. I thought to myself there are two more places and I sped up passing both by with about 1/2 mile left with no reaction from either. Finished strong.

Pushed a bit more. Though the climbs at the end hurt I was moving faster then the people around me and finished strong. Looking back I probably had a bit more to give throughout the race, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Wal around. Talk to all the racers I knew.


Weak Bike. Just 5 mins off my bike time alone, would have put me in 3rd overall. Next year.........


Good water stations on run. Lots of people drafting on the bike. Kind of unaviodable for the majority on the course, but the more experienced riders should know better. Some issues with the overall running of the event that were echoed by the Lake Saint Louis staff....and it took 2 hours to give out awards.