I’m not much for writing novels so I’ll just provide the highlights, random thoughts and lessons learned

Weather: WOW! It poured everyday leading up to the race. Race day, high was upper 70s, not a cloud in the sky! Perfect!

Swim: Accidentally ended up on the front line of the start. Not what I planned but I guess it worked. Yes, the start is as brutal as it looks. Don’t try to swim, just let the mass take you forward. After a pretty good beating, I finally found a happy calm spot. Much to my surprise, when I looked down I was right on top of the line (for those not familiar with LP, there’s a grid in the lake, for rowing I think, and they tie the buoys to those cables running under water and the lake is freakishly clear so you can see the cables). It was so nice to know I was swimming in a straight line without sighting. Trust me, you know when you get to the turn buoy. The line ended up being the least brutal place for me on the swim course, so I swam right on top of it the whole way. Hands down, my best swim ever! However, I do have a really nice bruise on my chin. Random thought: Breast stroke should be outlawed, you’re only going to hurt yourself and others….or if you really feel the need to do it, get way off course.

T1: the downside to a good swim is that you have to get your own transition bag and bike. Thankfully, mine were both on the ends of the rows.

Bike: The course is gorgeous and it’s nowhere near as hilly as it looks on the profiles and in flatlanders’ race reports. If you can bike the loop, you bike the LP bike course. Oxygen is a huge bonus as well. I was pretty happy with bike until mile 107 (yeah, 5 miles back to bike finish) when I flatted. Ok no big deal…off the bike, tire off, tube out, new tube….oh ****! The tubes in my saddle bag are for my training wheels, not the fancy pants wheels I’m racing on. The stems are too short :o( Yes, I had a complete breakdown on the side of the road and started crying. A really nice gal pulled over, she’d flatted multiple times that day wasn’t going to leave me stranded. Unfortunately, she had the same tubes I did. She gave a couple of patches and I attempted to find the hole in the tube. You might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack. I found what I though might look like a hole, patched it, tube back in, it held air, but it just didn’t look right. The right thing to would’ve been to let the air out and try again. However, I took the “it’s only 5 miles” approach and tried to ride. Yup, that lasted maybe 5 minutes. Back on the side of the road. Yet another nice person pulled over and gave me the right tube, about that time tech support showed up as well. So they put me back together and sent me on my way. Unfortunately, the total tire fiasco took at least 45 minutes! Lesson learned: make sure you pack the right crap for flats!!! Random thoughts: Don’t bother with an aero helmet, you look foolish…especially if I’m still with you on the second lap. I was one of the very few out there on a road bike w/o aerobars, but I didn’t miss them once.

T2: uneventful…lesson learned here would be to pack all of your contingency items in a separate bag in the transition bag. When you dump your bag at your feet it’s awful confusing what you really need.

Run: First half was pretty much what I expected. After that I really question the “3 hour” run training rule. You’ll read over and over that your long runs shouldn’t be any longer than 3 hours for various reasons. However, when you are a stellar runner such as myself, running 3 hours at best will get you 15-16 miles. I’m not sure how you’re going to survive 26 miles on that. (I’m not knocking my coach, Char is awesome and there’s literature all over the place to support the “3 hour” rule) I cratered at mile 16 and pretty much walked the rest of the course. I’m so glad Jarrod found me on the second lap and walked with me. It gets pretty lonely out there.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my race. Really looking forward to doing what I want to, when I want to.