How did I have SUCH a bad swim!!!!!! I was shocked to come out of the water and see 27' on my watch! WTF?! I had a tricky start- maybe I started too far to the outside?? I thought I was getting into a groove about half way to the tunnel, but then couldn't catch any feet. Felt like I was swimming the straight line, but everyone was to my left on the way out and on my right on the way back. After rounding the turn bouys and heading back through the bridges, it was strange to see the group ahead of me. I could tell that I was leading the second pack, but I could not bricge to the back of that first pack. I surged several times to try, but then gave up and found myself to the left and pulling about 15 gals... This was my worst swim of the year. Part of it was probably just realizing that I Was at worlds and part of it that I hadn't swam much in the weeks leading up to the race.

Start faster. Screw this thing of trying to find feet right away. In these big races, I need to go back to my strategy of the sprint start, then find feet. No more SH!T in the water from me!!!

So this included the 200m run TO transition, and the 700m run THROUGH transition. I got hung up with the suit jsut a tad, but the real problem was gettting through the MASSES of people in the transition area. It was one LONG narrow lane and Iit was tough to run around the AWAD athletes as well as those just walking thier bikes to the exit. I wanted to run, but it was tough going. Of course then I had almost no speed for a flying mount anyway...

Not much, but maybe jsut be more pushy.

I knew I had some ground to make up so I PUSHED this bike as hard as I could. It was trickier than it appeared because of all of the turns. Every time I felt comfortable I told myself to push harder. I don't think I left much on the table. My goal was 1:10 and I was at 1:10:30 so I was a touch off, but not bad, especially since the course was long and lots of turns. There were race officials En Masse, so I was very careful with passing, especially where there were big groups around. I did have to slow down a few times after being passed by people (mostly men though :) )

Not much, but the flying mount at the start and maybe push a tad more coming out of the turns.

I ran into SO many people running back into transition. I tried to be pushy, but it was tough. There were several wheelchair athletes in transition around this time and it was tough to get around them. I pretty much ran over another athlete who was just sauntering through the transition area... WTF?? Then I had trouble getting my bike racked with all of the CRAP in the way. No excuse though, I had one of the slower transitions in my AG and I wasn't happy with it! The fact is that I was in 21st place after the bike finish and in 27th place as the run started. This is NOT acceptable!

Don't know. Not get frustrated! The basics were OK, no hitches with the helmet or shoes, but I was frustrated...

The run start was tough for me. I had a bit of a side stitch along with some pretty bad shin splints. I think the stitch was from drinking a tad too much near the end of the bike. The shin splints were most likely from the hard brick surface along with pushing so hard on the bike. It's pretty cool how they have all of the splits and everything up on the ITU site. I can see that I was in GREAT shape coming off the bike, lost SEVERAL positions through transition and the beginning of the run, but then made a bit of a comeback on the run. The best position I was ever in was at hte end of the bike. This is all VERY encouraging. If I had had a better swim, I would have rocked this race. I negative split the run by almost a minute to pull off the 45. YES, I wanted to run 7' miles, but I also knew that it would have to be perfect for that and it was not quite. The first mile SUCKED. I just kept telling myself "It's just PAIN. It's NOTHING." You can do this. At the 5k check I was at 23' and was PISSED, so I put my head down, got forward on my toes and ran as hard as I could. I thought that I Was going to blow with a mile left, then was sure I was going to blow with 1/2 mile left. Then I started seeing the USAT people pushing me and cheering me on JUST IN TIME. I didn't give ANYTHING up, I passed one last girl for an AWESOME finish. This was on eof my hardest mental and physical efforts ever and I feel good about that.

Start better :) Not drink quite so much on the end of the bike and maybe hit the gel a little earlier (like if I didn't have a stitch, I would have)

Not much of one since I had to sit in the doping control area for an hour and a half waiting for my turn to pee in a few cups... I was one of 55 lucky athletes out of 2500 to be tested. I did jog back to the beer tent after the pee test :)


Emotional stress from Kathleen not being there. Not a perfect taper in terms of travelling so much and not swimming at all and riding very little.


I would love to go to short course worlds every year!!! IT was great to be a part of Team USA and some day I'd like to be competing for a top finish there!!!