The swim felt pretty good, though I found myself wondering if it would ever end. I didn't feel dizzy or disoriented, even though it's a pretty long distance for me, and even though I was one of the last green caps out of the water, I still beat all of my teammates and my coach (who was swimming with what we think is a broken rib, so I don't know if it counts ;) ).

I had a little trouble getting my wetsuit off, but it's the first time I've worn it in a race, so I expected to struggle a little. Oh, and I hit the wrong button on my Garmin and was disappointed to find that it hadn't recorded anything when I took it out of my swim cap.


I need to get faster on the swim--I was comfortable and did the whole thing without having to rest, but I'm still slow. I definitely need to practice more with the Garmin to see if I can get that to work better under pressure... and I won't wear it in my swim cap again, because it makes me look like a conehead in all of my race pictures!

T1 was fine. I don't have an official time for it, but I did it before anyone from my team showed up at the rack from the swim. The new Wrightsocks are a little difficult to get on wet feet, but I managed.

Nothing; I felt it went well.

The bike damn near killed me. I did the first lap, and it wasn't terrible--I was able to bike up each of the three hills without an enormous amount of difficulty.

The second lap was harder, but I made it up the Danskin Hill and the Park Entrance Hill (just barely, though). By the time I got to the Last Hill, I had to get off and walk. It felt GOOD to walk! Then, while trying to shift back to my middle ring, my chain came off. UGH! I had to fumble with it for a while, but I was able to make it work and keep going.

I only had one bottle of water on the bike, and by then it was really hot and that wasn't NEARLY enough. I was out of water by the start of the third lap, and my legs were tired, and I was grumpy and exhausted and all by myself.

I walked all the hills in the third lap. When I walked to the top of Danskin Hill, the awesome police officer who had been directing traffic gave me water out of his own personal water bottle. What a nice man! He was ready to call for help for me, but I told him I was fine, just slow and tired. I walked up Park Entrance Hill and had to tell the cops at the top the same thing. At this point, DoloresM2 caught up to me, and we got to chat for a little bit.

Halfway through my walk up Last Hill, I heard my teammate call my name. She was behind me at the bottom of the hill, and her quad had cramped up so badly she couldn't straighten her leg. I went back, gave her one of my Shot Blocks, and waited until she was able to walk up the hill with me.

I need to practice hauling my big butt up hills. I was woefully undertrained and unprepared for this race, and the bike is where that really showed. Also, I need to bring more water if I'm going to attempt this distance again, because I was super dehydrated by about 2/3 of the way through. It was a nasty feeling; while approaching Last Hill on the last lap, I was crying, but I had absolutely no liquid left to make tears--it was just a dry, hoarse sobbing sound. Pathetic!

By the time my teammate and I made it back to the transition area, it was already dismantled and the timing mats were gone. My coaches were guarding our one rack of stuff, so I had to pack my bike stuff as I took it off. They had already packed most of my things in my bag for me, which was nice, but it was disappointing to see that everything was pretty much done. If my teammate hadn't been there with me, I might have quit right then and given up on the run, but we went out and did it anyway.

Be faster on the bike, I guess, so I'd have an opportunity to do a proper transition!

Considering that I had absolutely nothing left in my legs by about halfway through the third lap of the bike, the fact that I made it through a 10K walk is nothing short of a miracle. My teammate and I started it off, and the last remaining teammate was only about five minutes behind us and managed to catch up after about the first mile. It was so good to see her! We walked the rest of the course as fast as we could, but obviously it took us a pretty long while.

The race director sent someone around in a truck twice to check and see who was left on the course. He took our numbers down and made sure we were OK, but I thought it was really awesome that he didn't pull us off the course and didn't even ask if we wanted a ride back.

By the time we approached the finish line, the actual official finish line had been taken down. They left it up as long as they could, but the generator ran out. Ha! We outlasted the generator! The race directors were there, holding up a makeshift finish tape for us with our coach, and all three of us crossed the "finish line" together.

Well, hopefully if I get better at the bike, I'll still have some energy left for a run afterwards. All things considered, we did the best we could on the run (walk), and we made it through!

I made sure to stretch and get as much water as possible in at the end of the race, but I didn't do too much in the way of a cooldown.


Um, everything. I didn't train enough, I wasn't prepared for the hills or the distance, and I'm way too fat. I think the Olympic distance is really for a different caliber of athlete, and I'm just not ready for that level yet.


I don't feel I can give this race a low rating, as I think the problems were my own and had little to do with the actual race. The race directors were really nice about the fact that we were completely incompetent athletes, and they still made us feel good about crossing the finish line with hugs and cheers and congratulations. All personnel did a great job of directing traffic and giving us the right-of-way whenever cars were present. The water stations on the run still had some water when we got there (though I really could have used some water on the bike). I would NOT recommend that beginners or people who are "casual triathletes" do this race, unless they happen to be really good cyclists who aren't bothered by the hills.

Updated to add a link to pictures: Click Here!