BAD. That really sums up the perceived performance. I never got my breath from the start. The course takes off for the first 150 meters or so directly into the sun. With the glare off the water you couldn't see the person beside or in front of you let alone some bouy off in the distance. People would swim then stop look swim then stop which seemed to cause a lot of running into an accordian type effect. Anyway I swam breast stroke to navigate thru the sun and would try to swim some freestyle but as soon as my face was underwater I was worried about where I was and would kind of freak. So probably 500 meters of this I swam breast stroke, which I haven't done in months. During the 250 meters I swam freestyle I concentrated on doing a 'power 20' that is to swim freestyle for 20 breaths, breathing every right side stroke. This gave me something to think about other than people, drowning, navigation, needing pulled out ect...It worked and when I saw my time I was shocked, I stood up at 17:30 and my goal was less than 20. I swam 850yrds in 21 min in the pool on Friday before race. So my time I am thrilled with, however the swim scared me, I was hurting the whole time. I rate this below average and not "bad" since I did achieve my goal, however..........I spent the entire swim thinking to myself this is stupid, what am I doing here, I want out of this water now, where is the kyak, where is the bouy, what am I doing here....

Well I think more open water swimming would be in order since this is my second open water swim. Also I am wondering if the wetsuit made a difference. I used a Predator II in my first race and smoked my goal time. This time I used the speedsuit, about $100 or more less expensive than the first one. My arms were struggling to move, I felt really constricted in my chest and shoulders. Maybe the extra $'s goes into flexibility. I am going to swim with this wetsuit at the Y this week and see if it is an issue or my head is.
One thing I think I would like to try is to begin at the front of the swim rather than the back. If every one in the back is slow and I am just thinking I am really slow but not then I get caught in the pack that is slow bumping into people. If I start in the middle of the pack then the fast guys can go then me and then the slow pack. I am not sure but when the gun sounded I was behind people walking into the water and I wanted to run. It just started off bad and got worse.

After exiting the swim you had about 100yrd run up a grassy hill to transition. This I don't really remember much about. I had my wetsuit off to the waist pretty quickly. Had trouble getting suit off because I was trying to hurry I wanted both transition times under 4 min's total. Everything else went smooth and ran the 200 yrd to bike exit. May of been quicker barefoot.

Nothing really. Just need to slow down with the wetsuit. It isn't that tough to get off but when you rush it, it can slow you down a bit.

After my disappointing swim feeling I wanted to treat this as a bike race and just go, screw the run, I will walk it if I have too. I went into this thinking it was 12.5 miles, that is what I signed up for but it ended up only 10 miles I have no idea why and wasn't told of a change. No big deal but it thru me when I was looking at my computer to know where I was. I hadn't seen the course before I raced it. I felt real good the whole ride and passed many many people. It is pretty cool to pass the guys on tri bikes while on my road bike. There were times I was in my small, yes small chainring going 11mph up hill and passing people. Was over 40 mph and that was fun. Kept cadence high and avgerage over 22mph on the flats. My time would of been even better had this Oly bike racer coming out of T1 as I was coming in not been in our lane. There was a 200meter part of the course where both directions had to be on the 'wrong' side of the road for in/out traffic. He wasn't and I was 3 abreast with two women. I was passing both as one was passing the other all of us yelling 'get to your left but he was just hammering away straight for us, we all locked them up came to almost complete stops as he just swerves at the last minute and goes on. I was pissed and took off to T2. I calmed down pretty quickly, I was almost done. Swim completely forgotten. I had a goal time of 38 mins for a 12.5 mile ride so this I guess 10 in 30 is the same. Goal achieved

More training. I need to get my average up for the sprints into 21-23mph range for next year. Had some hills but I attacked them so I was happy with that. I found most riders were coasting downhill while I just kept hammering. Leg strength was very good. More hill training.

This is my first race with the new shoe laces and what did I do? I changed something. Usually I keep the shoes with the lace locks as tight as I want them for running and slip them on and off never messing with it. Well the night before as I am practicing transitions I get the notion to loosen the lacelocks just a bit and then be able to get my shoes on quicker and then just pull tight and go. Well that would be great except I forgot to pull tight. So I had to stop twice in T2 to fix the tounge and tighten. Lesson learned. No big deal really but I missed the 4 min T1+T2 time.

Practice like I race or race like I practice.

Felt the affects of the hard bike running thru transition, about 200yrds then back down the other side of transition towards my bike rack and then out onto a gravel road and grass for 1/2 mile or so. The soft gravel and grass where great for my legs and at the 1 mile point (8:33 mile) I was feeling good. Picked up the pace a little bit on the following two miles. Didn't see the mile markers for the 5K so I have no idea what the other two miles worked out to be. Goal time was 24 min's

Run faster during the first mile. I know I could of run somewhere less than 24 min if I would of pushed it harder. More brick workouts.

Just walked around and watched some of the transitions for the Olympic racers, drank water, ate the free food and talked to other racers.


Swimming first and formost. I honestly think I could swim the 750 meters in 15 min's, IF, IF I could just swim. Does that make any since???
Biking just need more miles and a good offseason. Running similar to biking just more focused workouts and staying injury free. I don't think the sleep affected me at all, nor the beer :) Just the swim.


This was a very fun and friendly race. The race directors and volunteers where very helpful and friendly. Had a lot of fun. The overall results show me as 76th but they list the teams with the general classifications so I took out the 3 teams that finished in front of me.