First off this was my very first tri event in my life so I don’t have anything to compare it to. This race was meant to be a practice for an Olympic size tri in the fall. We arrived at the expo on Saturday to check in and do a pre race meeting, which I thought would take a while and of course it took a total of 5 minutes to check in. The pre race meeting was helpful for a first time triathlete. The expo was pretty cool it allowed you to pick up stuff you forgot like a race belt but the band is really not needed. On Sunday we got up way to early, again thinking the set up would take a lot longer then it did. This left me with plenty of time to stretch and scope out my competition. At this point I set up 2 goals for myself, don’t drown and beat the 14 year old set up next to me. As we got on our wetsuits I felt pretty good, especially since the waves were very small. My only real issue the entire weekend came when we got down to the beach no one could explain to us which buoys we were swimming to as the color they told us the buoys were going to be at the pre race meeting were not out there. After the warm up swim or float as some would call it, we were explained which buoys to follow. By the way, the water is very cold for this triathlon, this was based on my 2 other previous ocean swims the week before at Tower 26. They said the temp was 61 but it didn’t feel it. The swim went very well for me, I didn’t drown and came in with a time of 7:44. The course was a simple 2 quick rights and they only had you go out about 75 meters before you took your first right. Also my adrenaline allowed me to not notice how cold the water was but boy did I feel it as I got out. Going into my first transition ever was a very good experience. I jogged back to transition which is probably 250 yards away from where you get out of the water. Got my wetsuit off pretty easily as I ran up to my bike which I was glad because since I had very little experience with this I was nervous it was going to take 5 minutes to do. Get to my bike and notice my neighbor threw his wetsuit all over my stuff, I was a little pissed but decided to let it go. I had a pretty poor time of 3:09 in transition 1, getting wet socks on seemed to take a while. The bike course is great for a first time rider. It is flat the entire way and pretty wide open, never felt like I was going to hit another biker. I got passed a lot but was not surprised as I never felt great on the bike ride due to my muscles feeling very cold coming out of the ocean. Another thing I learned on the bike, even though I was only doing a sprint I need to hydrate on the bike. I didn’t do this and it caught up to me. My bike time was 36:41, which was above my goal :(. Transition 2 was a breeze, there was no wetsuit over all of my stuff and I got in and out pretty easily. Time was 1:03. The run is where it went all downhill for me. As you come out of transition you pass the first water station and boy was I happy. This was the first water I had taken in since the race started and I still didn’t grab more then one cup, which we will just call stupid. I got through the first mile ok but then my body started to cramp up on me, from the mile 1 marker to the half way point seemed like an endless point. At the mid way point I made it a purpose to drink a couple cups of water and Gatorade, plus toss a couple cups of water on me. At this point I started to feel better and was able to jog the rest of the way to finish with a time of 32:38 on the run, super sad face. The finish is very cool there and they really make you feel like a star when you finish with all of the volunteers being very helpful. They had some strawberries and bananas there when you finished plus all the water you can drink. My overall time was 1:21:18, actually right around my goal of 1:20. Things I learned from this race: 1. If you wake up with a head cold, don’t take something that will dry your body out, just blow your nose and move on. 2. You have to hydrate while on the bike. The reason I didn’t is because I have a tendency to lose my balance when I go for my bottles so I was afraid to crash. This has been fixed by switching to a camel pack. Overall I had a great time and it was a very good learning experience. I would really recommend this tri for a beginner and if you have any questions about this triathlon please don’t hesitate to email me. Jason Kummer jkforex@yahoo.com