The St. Peters tri was this morning. I got up at 6 and left at about 6:30 after a small bowl of oatmeal. Julie drove me out, I got there, set up transition, got my body markings, and did a tiny bike ride to make sure everything was working fine. I grabbed my swim stuff and headed inside to the pool after eating a Gu at 7:45.

The start was time-trial style, with swimmers going every 15 seconds. My start time was 8:01 and it was a 500 m swim in a 50 m pool. The swim was fine, I passed 3 people and was passed once. The start times were not based on projected swim times, so it was a little chaotic. I swallowed a decent amount of water, but emerged fine in 11:20 (rank 233rd/400) I hoped to go closer to 10:30, but 11:20 was fine considering having to stop and duck under ropes, and swimming an extra 25 meters or so to get from the left to the right side of the pool.

Transition 1 was good, I ran hard to my bike. Shoes and helmet came on, and I took off. I did my first flying mount in a race, it was good!

The bike ride was great! Really flat, few problems. I decided before the race I wanted to push the bike hard, and it worked out. I averaged 22 mph over the 21 mile course (which I think was a bit long), managed to eat another Gu after my stomach settled down from the pool water. I passed a ton of people and was passed only twice. My bike time (which included both transitions, this race had no chip timing) was 1:02:45 (rank 45/400). I credit my bike improvement to riding about 40 miles/week extra around campus.

T2 was pretty good. I took my shoes off a little too early in the bike, but that was no big deal. I forgot to take my gloves off while on the back so I had to do that in transition, which was an extra few seconds. After that, I pulled on my shoes, number belt, and watch and headed to the run.

The run went really well - my legs felt great off the bike! First time for that. The 5-mile run was shady, on paved trails behind the Rec-Plex (where the pool was). I passed a ton of people and was passed twice. I started off at what I thought were about 7:00 miles. I felt decent, kept trying to pick up the pace a little. The path had a lot of short up and downs that threw off my pace a bit, and a lot of corners. The race ended before I was ready - I thought the finish was another quarter mile or so away when it came, so I had about a 25 yard kick. Final time was 33:03, 6:53/mile (rank 30).

I ended up 4th in my age group, by 8 seconds. If I would have known where the run finish was I'm pretty confident I could have taken 3rd, but that will have to wait for next season. I was 41st over all, out of 400, so top 10%! My first race I was top half, then top quarter in my second.
Anyway, this was my best race by far. I swam pretty well, biked really well, and ran well. My goal time was 1:51, and I finished in 1:46:43!