The night before was very mellow. Me and family went to the Pasta House, I ate manicotti and drank ice tea. I ate way too much that I thought may give me problems but it didn't. Went home and reviewed my checklist. We had a friend of the family spend the night so when Rene and I left the house at 4:30am we wouldn't wake anyone up. For breakfast I had the typical 3 bags of oatmeal, bagel with peanut butter and a big cup of coffee. I loaded my stuff, loaded the bike and we were "wheels up" at 4:35. We arrived at the site about 5:45 and parking was on the side streets surrounding the clubhouse. I had picked up my packet the weekend before at the Open Water swim practice so the only checkin I had to do was get body marked (#303) and get my timing chip. The morning was un seasonably cool which was great. A perfect day for the race.

Tranisition was closing at 7:00 so at abour 6:45 I donned the wetsuit. Used a lot of Pam cooking spray on my legs and on the outside of the legs of the WS to help in the removal and walked down to the beach start with my Tempo Trainer, cap, and primary goggles. A guy Rene and I were talking too told us a horror story about braking his goggle strap as he was putting them on before his wave start the previous year. With that, I handed Rene my spare set to keep in her purse just in case. I will be doing that from now on and is being added to the pre race checklist for sure. As far as warmup goes, I had almost 40 minutes until my wave start so I swam a coupls hundred meters near the beach just to loosen up and check gogggles. I started to get out of the water but it was really cold so I just stayed in the water and talked to other racers until it got closer to my wave. I tried my best to spot where the sighting lines were but you couldn't see the second buoy from the beach. I spotted a break in the tree line for the first buoy and it worked out really well

With this being my first Oly my goal was to start nice and easy and find a rhythmn early and not go anaerobic. Calm and steady was my thought and focus on the Tempo of 1.17 strokes per sec. I started back right and settled in early and quickly became focused and ignorant of the people around me. Not much jostling at the beginning. The waves were 3mins apart and we had 49 people in our wave. There was plenty of room.

I don't think I would do anything differently. The swim was executed exactly as I had planned to the minute of goal. My focus was to finish and not freak out. I am still very new to swimming (less than 8 months) and from not being able to do 2 laps in a 25yd pool in November of last year to swimming OW almost a mile I am pleased. I have a lot of work to do but I will improve. Compared to others I am slow, compared to my personal goal, I am right where I had hoped to be

It was a long run from water exit to T1 up on a hill. I was efficient but not super fast. I found my bike quickly and didn't run into any problems

I need to work on shoes in the clips and putting them on once I mount. My shoes are more like a road shoe than a tri shoe so this is difficult. I will work on this in the off season / early next season

My nutrion was solid. I at 3 Gu on the bike spaced out beginning, middle, and end. I also took in calories by drinking 1.5 big gatorades on the bike. My race plan was for a warm day but it was unseasonably cool so I didn't sweat as much as I thought I would. There were a lot of rolling type hills so my plan was to hammer the downs and carry speed on the ups and that worked out pretty well. I was able to pass a lot a people on the hills.

I need to re-evaluate my threshold power. I pushed pretty hard on the bike and was worried it would affect my run. I will say that my legs were really fresh from the swim. That is one huge benefit of TI since I really don't kick much at all. I don't know if I would do much differently other than study the course a little more. I need to continue to improve my power.

Would have been an even better T2 if my right shoe wouldn't have come unclipped when I started to run at the dismount line. The official actually threw me my shoe. Probably loat a few seconds (5-10). Tranistion was solid. Spraying my heels with cooking spray prior to the race really made a difference. Much better than using glide as in the past.

tighten the clip on my right pedal so it doesn't come off runnint into T2. Start my bike computer in setup so that it acquires satellites more quickly when I start to ride

The run was great. My legs didn't feel wobbly at all and I was able to start out with a great pace. I actually needed to slow down abit on lap 1 because I started out too fast (how possible I don't know). I basically found someone that ran about my pace (same guy as on the bike) and ran with him. He was a little faster than me so I had to push a bit to keep up. Eventually he pulled up with a cramp and I was able to pass him. It was great because several houses along the route turn this into a party. Music blaring, people drinking. It was a real boost to pass a houes that really got into it.

Nothing. I was able to keep my cadence up and my splits were very consistent. For me, it was a great run escpecially the fact that I had consumed too many fluids and ran the entire 10K needing to relieve them.

I ate as soon as I finished, drank a gatorade, ate 1/2 a bagel and banana. Then about 30 mins later I ate a burrito supplied by the race sponsors. Talked to a few people from Tri-Smart. Listened to awards and left. It was a great day

This is my first year of doing an triathlons. I would love to be faster but I have been improving every race so personally, I don't know how I could have done better in this race. I exceeded my best goal time by 13 minutes. With this being a B race for me my week was a pretty heavy training week with very little taper and my legs felt very fresh.

Great event, lots of volunteers, lots of spectators and the venue is absolutely beautiful. There are parts of the bike that are not closed so you have to be alert. Plenty of troopers, police support and volunteers to help. First class event. Got to give a shout out to https://www.acropolistech.comwho didn't make too much fun of me when I would swim, bike or run on my lunch hours.