I felt good out there. Immediately fell into a groove. a couple times I fell out of it a bit and realized that it was b/c I was taking a breath on every other stroke. I would tell myself that I wasn't out of air and would fall back into my groove breathing every 4th stroke. I started a bit wide to avoid the mass of people and soon realized that I was towards the front of the group, so I started easing my way towards the inside so that I could cut the corner as closely as possible. Towards the end my arms felt tired and I didn't know why. My lungs and heartrate seemed fine so I kept pulling. I didn't realize until I got out that my arms hurt b/c I was swimming faster than I usually do...I felt good in the water.

I did take two kicks to the gut while passing someone. She suddenly switched from freestyle to breaststoke and I got two quick kicks to the gut. Not sure if she switched b/c she was tired or b/c she thought I was too close to her. Either way I started the swim expecting worse so I took it in stride and just pulled ahead of her quicker than I had planned.

I'll keep practicing and getting better/faster but as for this race, I wouldn't change anything.

I'm no speed demon in transition so I was pleased with how it was all going until it was time to get on the bike. I didn't travel with my bike so I had a rental. As such, very little practice hopping on this new bike and getting my feet into the shoes while riding. It did not go as smoothly as I would have liked but it was still quicker than putting my bike shoes on in transition.

Unless I want to travel with my bike I can't really help that I was on an unfamiliar bike.

As a tri newbie I'm not unhappy with my T1 time but at some point I'm going to have to practice my transitions and commit to getting those times down.

Lots and lots of fun. I rented a bike that was much better than my bike...easy to do since at home I still ride a mtn. bike. The bike portioned seemed almost effortless even though I was going much faster than my typical pace. I didn't like not knowing how far I had ridden. Had the course been marked for mileage or if I had an odometer I could have judged better and pushed a bit harder.

Now that I've seen first hand how much of an improvement a bike makes I'm jonesing even more for a bike. I can't wait until I acutally get one.

I knew I was getting close but the dismount line came up on me a bit quicker than I though, giving me less time than I would have liked to get my feet out of and on top of my shoes riding towards the dismount line. I got my second foot out of my shoe just in time to dismount. So, while hurried, it all worked out ok.

Take a look at the mount/dismount line before the race and visualize where I need to start working on getting my feet out of the shoes.

First 1/2 mile felt very good and I ran a bit faster than I had planned to take advantage of my legs feeling good b/c I know from brick experience that the bike affects my legs on the 2nd 1/2 mile. Just as expected the legs got heavy, I slowed a bit but was still close to my 10 min/miles (slow but good for me). Once the legs felt a bit better I got back to 10 min/miles.

I would hydrate a bit less. I took some giant swigs in T2 and felt full the first half of the run, in fact, I skipped the water stops until the second half of the run.

I really didn't warm down, I was very excited to have family and friends at the race so I immediately met up with them. I walked around with them while talking but never stretched nor did I really make an effort to eat or hydrate for quite some time. Not the best plan of attack but it was a special occasion.


On a course that was 2 miles longer, I beat my first tri time by 9 minutes. I'm by no means fast but this was very good for me. Not sure I could do much better at this point.