It was a beautiful day in Wisconsin that is for sure. The air was a bit chilly, like mid 60s, which made the 70 degree water feel awesome. I didn't want to get out!

I competed in the Super Sprint. So the rest of the races I don't have a ton of info on.

I must say there was a bit of confusion. Apparently they changed some of the swimming (go on the right side of the dock instead of the left or something) because a lot of people were complaining that it was different than the previous year and confusing. For the super sprint it was pretty simple. We just swam an out and back against the shore. Turned around one buoy and came back, cake, 1/4 mile. There was also a normal sprint, olympic, and 1/2 extreme.

So what did I learn? Man i transition slow! All I did was put on shoes and a helmet (wore trisuit for the whole race) and it still took me over 2 minutes. The transition area was a bit unorganized...I did miss a lot of the briefings on the course...and it was my first time...but I had no idea where the best place to put my stuff was.

Swimming..wow...this was what I was most nervous about! And of course, my hours and hours of training resulted in me forgetting it ALL as soon as I hit the water. I think I did a total of 8 good freestyle strokes. After that I just tried to keep my head above water and keep moving. It was like I had never swam before in my life, very unpretty.

So I finished the swim, jumped on my bike and took off!! All of the races started out on the same course...so I was looking down and pumping my legs...and I looked up and saw a sign that said "Olympic" just past a turn. Stupid me thought, oh crap i missed a turn! So i TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK TO THE TURN. Only to find out that the "Sprint" and "Super Sprint" signs directly preceeded the Olympic. So i wasted at least a minute turning around for no reason...geez what a newb! I also rode my sweet new Giant OCR3...I like it a lot but i already need new tires with less than 200 miles on it...

Anyways...I must have blown my whole load on the bike. I was passing everyone and very confused on why they weren't going faster, it's a race right? I thought, maybe my training around here in Ozark country missouri just had me more prepared for the inclines...but I would realize later why everyone else was taking it easy. 17 miles on the super sprint btw.

So I get to the run...1 mile. I get about 1/4 mile and feel like I'm about to vomit big time. I had to stop and walk for about 30 seconds or longer. I thought for sure the run would take me a full 10 minutes. However, we started up a huge incline...so everyone was taking it a little slow. Then I was able to turn around and go back DOWN the incline which was awesome. I just hopped and let gravity do the work. Finally the finish!! In my mind "is this really over already??"

Overall here's how it went down for me:

Total: 1:11:07
Swim: 8:02
T1: 2:11
Bike: 51:23
T2: 1:51
Run: 7:41

I finished up 3/15 in my Age group (Men 25-29) and 21/158 overall! I think I could have shaved about 5 minutes off too without the follies, oh well!

On a side note, according to the results from last years Lake Geneva Tri, I would have been in second place overall...I'm not sure if the conditions were just better this year or if everyone just got better, but the average time this year beat last years average by like 20 minutes...weird.

Doing so well on my first tri I felt like I won the whole thing! Can't wait to get out there and do it again!