First let me just say that this swim time is a little creepy because it is exactly, down to the second, how long I had told Stacie I would take. Weird. If this had been a guess your swim time contest I totally would've won! :)

As a part of Danskin tradition, before your wave starts Sally Edwards (spokeswoman) gives you a power word for your wave to repeat and say "I am a _______ swimmer". Mine was super...and all I could think of was Big Gay Al from South Park and "I'm thuper, thanks for athking". So I totally missed the whole inspirational speech part cus I was too busy cracking up to myself.

Once we started I stayed back to avoid letting adrenaline get the best of me and to avoid the flailing arms and legs. I think I stayed too far back though because a whole group of women in front of me stopped almost as soon as we'd started. I think they were all friends and one had freaked out so the whole group stopped. Once I got past them I kept running in to others that had either stopped or were moving so painfully slowly they might as well have been stopped. Once I got through the craziness though I got into my stroke and just found my rhythm and went for it. I felt AWESOME! I had a million things going through my head about wow, this is it, i'm actually doing it, but at the same time I was just totally focused, calm, and confident. I kept my stroke going at my pace and I found myself starting to pass people...not just the ones hanging on to bouys or kayaks, but I was passing actual swimmers! Wow!

After the turn around the first bouy the course went straight into the sun. The bouy was a little orange thing which was nearly impossible to actually see. At around that time my goggles started to fog up and when the sun hit to fog I couldn't see a thing. Totally disorienting. For a while I found some feet to follow but then it got too weird for to me to not be able to see so I flipped over on my back to clear them out. Apparently I don't go too straight on my back though because I had gone way the wrong direction in that short time! Took me a bit to get back with the group but I still felt awesome. Came around the second bouy and started heading back towards the beach. Same rhythm, feeling great, all the way in. Free the whole way!!! My ultimate swimming goal! Woohoo! :) My only mistake is that I tried to stand up too early and my feet didnt actually reach the bottom. Then I ended up putting my foot down on a rock. Ow!

I'm a little surprised with how slow my time is considering how good I felt. (Not long ago I would've considered this an awesome time, but I was only a tad slower in Boulder and I'd done mostly sidestroke there). I was in the top third overall though for swimming so apparently everyone's times were a bit slow. I'm really excited that I actually placed sorta towards the front of the pack in something! Yay! :)

Maybe start a little farther up in the pack, though I'm glad I didn't for this race because I liked avoiding all that extra stress.

Slowest. Transition. Ever. I decided that it was much more important to me to be comfortable on the bike than to have a fast transition, so I took my time to sit down and lace up my shoes and get everything situated just right....ate a few grapes and part of a chocolate gu. I had arranged everything so it would be easy to get to, but after the excitement of the swim it was hard to focus on what I was doing. There waere also tons of people in the transition area just hanging out and talking....some had just arrived, some were finishing relay legs, but I sort of forgot I had to hurry with so many ppl just hanging around. My transition spot was about as far as you could possibly be from the bike start, so I had a loooooong ways to go with my bike. (It was super close to the swim and run though, so it worked out ok)

Nothing. I'm sure someday I'll be more concerned with transition speed, and when I am I'll work on it.

Holy freakin fast bike time!!! For the road bikers out there this probably looks slow, but for riding on a 7 year old mountain bike, not so bad, right? :) I passed a lot of ppl and got passed a lot on the bike....but not a single mountain biker passed me so that made me happy! (Ok one did, with slicks, but I'm pretty sure I passed her back!)

It was a closed course for the bike, so as soon as I got on to the main road it was just bikes everywhere. It was amazingly cool to see, especially for me coming from being so lazy for so many years. So many people out on bikes...it's hard to explain but it was a beautiful thing! :) Around mile 4 my thighs started cramping up a bit but not bad enough to cause a problem....just bad enough to remind me that this is hard work and supposed to hurt a bit! :) The hills were rough, as expected, but I was so glad I had ridden them before. They were definitely easier the second time and I was amazed with how fast I made it up to the turnaround. Lots of ppl were walking their bikes up the steeper hills.

Every couple of miles there was a mile marker (which was nice since i'd forgotten to restart my bike computer) with a saying on it. My personal favorite was "Mile 10: so long monkey!" During the first timers overview at the expo they had talked about the self-doubt monkey on your back that will show up during the race and how you have to keep believing in yourself to get rid of that monkey. Boy does it feel good to say good riddance to that monkey for good! No more Lacey the couch potato. Say hello to Lacey the triathlete!

Not a thing! My goal was to finish in an hour averaging 12mph and I kicked the crap outta that! I have a lot to learn on the bike but its mostly just a lack of experience. I need to ride more hills and get better at knowing when to shift, but all things considered I feel really really great about how well I did on those hills. Though having a road bike would've helped....

Considering that I didn't have to change shoes, this transition should've been a lot faster. I took my time again though....would rather the extra minute to be as ready as I can be. Had some more grapes, retied my shoes, got my race belt on (took a couple of tries! lol), grabbed my water bottle and away I went. Well sort of....I finally got to experience the brick legs sensation. It took a bit to get to even a walk, much less run!

Nothing....transition speed will come later.

It started to get HOT on the run! I had my water bottle with me for drinking though so at every aid station I could dump the water cup over my head which helped a lot. I had my interval timer on my watch set to 2 min. walking for every 1 min. of running. I started out running out of the transition area beause I wanted to run where the crowd was. I then started my timer and stuck with it for the entire run. The timer is a huge help for me because I can cut off the running before I get so exhausted that I can't make it any farther. I then am able to recover quickly and do it again, and I get into a much better rhythm than if I were just running as much as I can at a time. I walked with one woman for a while who was really struggling and I told her what I was doing. "You can do anything for a minute at a time!" I told her, and that's what I was repeating to myself for this whole run. Everything hurt, my stomach felt like it was going to explode, and I really just wanted to sit in the shade....but I can do anything for a minute at a time, and I did. I stuck with my pace all the way through, and I'm so so happy that I was able to keep it in the 12's. Once again it's just amazing, not much more than a month ago 14min/miles were crazy fast for me, and just look at me now! My shins felt awesome the whole way....absolutely no pain. Or maybe it was just that everything else hurt so much I didn't notice the shin pain? Hmmmmmm

The announcer announced everyones names as we finished....hearing my name over the loudspeaker was just amazing! I had really done it!

Nothing. I need more running experience and more time to strengthen my shins, but I accomplished exactly what I had set out to do.

Found a volunteer to take my chip off the strap for me b/c my hands were shaking too bad (from exhaustion and excitement) to do it. Found Stacie and got a big hug from her. Found the first available shade (happened to be next to the ambulance...ha!) and sat down. Drank some nice cold water...life is good! :)

Once I finally made it back to my car, out of traffic, and home, I made myself the world's biggest turkey sandwich and a giant glass of ice water, and plopped myself down in front of the tv with my fan pointed directly at me. It's so fun to be lazy knowing i've earned it!


Lack of experience. I'm a beginner and it shows, but I couldn't have asked for a better race! I beat my goal time by 4 minutes even with my slow transitions! (I hadn't decided if I was including transition times in that goal or not, so in a sense I beat it by 12 minutes!). I'm a little disappointed with this race report form because the choices for overall for each part only go up to good....I really want one that says "really freakin' awesome!!!" cus that's what it all was! :)


This race needs some major work on traffic issues. It seems that with the number of years they've been holding this they should be able to find a workable solution. Also, the post-race food could've been better....green bananas, plain bagels with nothing to put on them, and nutri-grain bars.

It was a really great race for a first one though...there were lots of other newbies and the atmosphere was awesome! Everyone was just out having fun and supporting each other...very cool! They really cater well to those new to the sport.