I lined myself up behind Molly because I know she's a bit faster than me and I wanted to catch her draft for as long as possible. Was able to stay with her for the first half of the first leg but then she took off and I couldn't stay with her. Caught some drafts from other people when I could. I was thrilled with my swim. There was minimal bumping, punching, elbowing, etc. (I guess I just wanted to be nice, LOL). I was happy with my navigation too.

Nothing. That's probably the fastest I've ever gone in an OWS.

T1 took a little long because it was an extremely long run from the swim and my delicate feet can't handle barefoot for that long. It was worth it for me to take the extra time to have aqua shoes ready at the swim exit and wear them for that long run.

Not get my wetsuit stuck on the heels. Also peeling it off was a little slow because I forgot to spray Pam on the outside of the suit.

I tried to take it comfortable but whenever someone passed me it made me push a little harder. Things got a little tough on my legs by mile 40 or so, but I figured the faster I go the sooner I get my butt out of the saddle!

A few more longer training rides.

When I got back to my rack I found that someone (apparently getting the rack stuck in their handlebars and yanked up hard when getting their bike out) had removed one of the two supporting legs of the rack and it was falling down. I had to stop to tell the USAT official so he could fix it. Meanwhile, I'm getting frustrated so I just plopped the bike down as he was fixing it and put on my shoes and socks. Then I racked my bike after he fixed the problem. that was WAAAAAY frustrating!

Not much I could do when the rack was screwed up.

The whole run was hard after that tough bike. The second loop was MUCH harder than the first (I think they somehow put in some hills on that second one), but I knew so many people cheering for me they really helped me get to the finish line. What a great feeling!

A few more longer run practices

Biked back over to the swim area to take a shower but #$%@ the park people closed off that area and I had to stay in my stinky clothes. Luckily a man guarding the transition area had a whole gallon of water (it was quite warm because it was sitting out in the sun all day) and poured it over me so I could at least rinse some of the salt off. Did a few painful jogs which I'm sure looked quite humerous to anyone watching. Then drank about 8 bottles of water and anything else I could get my hands on.


Nothing. I left it all out on the race course. Couldn't have gone faster if I'd tried.


This race was so hard for me because it was a qualifier for next year's world championships (top 3 in age group). So this is the first time that my race goals were based on placement rather than me just beating the clock or challenging myself. My time was faster than I'd ever dreamed I could go but even then I had to wait until the results were posted to know if it was good enough to qualify. I was SHOCKED when it showed I was first!

I knew so many people at this race so even though it was far from home (about 70 miles) I was comfortable. Thee were tons of BTers there racing and cheering and lots of folks from my tri club too. What a great day!

I QUALIFIED FOR WORLDS!!!! I'M GOING TO FRANCE NEXT YEAR!!!