Woke from a fitful sleep, ate a ham sandwich and miso soup (I figured this would take the place of pre-race electrolytes), said morning prayer and packed up. I headed out and arrived at the race site with a comfortable amount of time.

Stretched out and ran for about 10 minutes.

If I'm ever going to swim in a wet suit, I need to move to a cooler climate. Not that I mind, it's one less thing I have to deal with and I'm comfortable in the water. Siting went well for me. I stayed with freestyle and didn't alternate with breaststroke. I managed to draft for a while off someone from the wave behind me. I don't know what my relative speed was, but I felt consistent throughout the course.

I was worried about my contacts staying in. I went to the optometrist this week and learned that they don't fit all that well. Before I knew that, it didn't worry me as much. I never lost the seal on my goggles, so I didn't have to test the fit in a real-life situation.

Long run out of the swim took some time. I follow the maxim "fast is slow" in transition and I actually thought I took more time here. I washed my feet off, put on socks and shoes, drank some water, then stood up put on my helmet and sun glasses and unracked my bike.

Need to work on that shoe on bike thing; running in road cleats is no fun.

My work commute got me through this bike course. I don't often train on hilly terrain, and this course was a roller coaster. Fortunately, my work commute has some hills that I occasionally race if I'm running late. I thought about this because I would sit up to climb. I decided that this was a result of most of my hill work being on a hybrid cycle. I didn't push myself to grind out the hills, I dropped gears and spun only standing twice to pass.

I did very well with hydration especially considering I train with a camelbak, but raced with an areo and cage bottle.

Having my Garmin was a great help with pacing for me. The course wasn't marked by distance and it was a big loop, so there was no way to know where I was without it.

Take some nutrition with me. I didn't need it so much for the bike, but I noticed the lapse in intake on the run.

I had to rearrange some bikes to rack mine. Fortunately, I get practice at that when I bike to the grocery store.

Again, need to work on that shoe thing.

I started out too fast off the bike, felt chills of lack of nutrition, and slowed down after the first mile. My left hip started hurting at mile 2, so I ran/walked the rest of the course.

Pace more realistically at the beginning.

Following the advice of race as you train, I came into transition, threw on a clean shirt and shorts and jogged up the road to go to Mass. After the service, I went back to the race site and hung out and ate before heading home.

- First race at this distance
- Lack of experience with OWS
- Lack of training on hills (both bike and run)
- Hip pain