I was a swimmer in High School, and for years before that, so I really don't practice swimming, as my limiter is the running. I figured I'd be able to complete the swim, but that it would hurt and I would do poorly. In a pool, I do about 1:45/100 yards and can do a lot of those, but I make a lot of time up on the walls - I've only done one open swim at a beach so far - that was actually the last time that I was in the water, and it was about 3 weeks ago.
Pace was slow and strong, concentrated on efficiency, and long strokes, easy breathing.... I guess it worked.
At this event, I decided to go very easy on the swim, as I have never done a brick with a swim involved and I wasn't sure how it was going to affect the rest the event.
I felt very strong and confident through the whole swim, although I had very little idea where I was in my wave, although I knew I finished before many in some of the other waves. I was suprised to find out that I finished in the top third.

I suspect that I probably swam about an extra 200 yards, I need to work on being able to do open swims in a straighter line. A very little bit of practice on the swim would net me a good amount of time just from conditioning, but for now I need to work on running. Most of my swiming should be focused on improving my open water ability.
I would rate this swim performance good, considering my lack of practice, but I think I could have done a lot better navigation, so I'm rating it average.

First transition ever... I didnt' practice this ever, so I didn't really know what to expect.

took 1 gel w/ caffeine, swig of h20, swig of defizzed redbull

I probably passed 40-50 people, which gave me the impression that I was going faster than I was. I feel that cycling is my strongest portion, and looking at the results, I'm suprised I was this far down in the rankings in cycling, and as far up in swimming.

drank 2 bottles of 3xCytomax Scoop, drank 1 bottle of water from aero bottle, took one hammer gel

I had plenty of extra energy on this leg - probably could increased effort 20-30pct and knocked off 5-8mins. However, I didn't make any other mistakes, and my training has been to maintain a pace for 56 miles, not for 26.

Went really slow just like the other transition... didn't want to forget anything and was not in a rush at all. Didn't try to do anything fancy with the transition such as riding without shoes on, etc.

took one accelerade gel, a hit of the defizzed red bull, and a swig of water

The purpose of this TRI was to get things like transitions figured out, and not stress over things I haven't experienced yet. I was slow and methodical, and didn't forget to do anything. I'll probably mess around with not wearing socks in training to see if I can do that at the next one.

first mile was 8 min
next 2 miles were 9 minutes
last three miles were around 10 minutes, maybe just a little under
walked the last 4 water stops (there were 7)
had to stop and tie my shoes 4x on the course... which is just silly.... I'm getting those little quick tie things for next time.


I am planning on visiting this course again soon to do some training on it, and get a feel for the pacing that I can do.

walked over to the shade and sat down.


1. Need to improve my running - mostly conditioning, although I feel I've made really great strides so far.
2. Bike - Could have pushed a little harder and still had enough left for the run, but I don't want to overdo it as I use
3. Swim - work on open water... suprisingly my conditioning isn't as weak as I thought


Placed 199/373 overall, and 7/26 Clydesdale, so i'm pretty happy. I totaled almost 8 minutes of transition; if I knocked that down by 5 mintues, which I think is totally reasonable, I would have finished 50 places higher overall, so I guess I was really near the middle of the bell curve for finishing time. Good race... my first, so I have nothing to compare it to, but it seemed very safe and well-run. I'll be back next time for sure......