Rockwell, Texas - These race reports can get out of hand in length so I’ll attempt to be brief. There is only one thing I need to report. I completed my first event with an open water swim! It was only 750 meters in Lake Ray Hubbard, but it was in a lake nonetheless.

The other beginner friendly feature was the Swim Stream Start. Rather than a mass of people all starting at the exact same time, they had us line up in order of skill level and sent us across the timing mat one by one. It was similar to a pool based swim other than not inserting a 5-10 second delay between participants. It was still tight quarters at times, but you could generally maneuver into an open spot. The only time I encountered chaos was in the last 100 meters or so. The tail end of Olympic distance swimmers were still in the water so the quicker Sprint racers had to pick their way through these slow Olympians. Had I been fast it would have impacted my race much more than it did.
Having people around you has another benefit that I hadn’t thought of until the race clinic. You can use other participants to help you sight. Rather than raise your head out of the water every few strokes in an attempt to spot the turn buoy, you just swim along with the others. If everyone is sighting occasionally, it is unlikely you are all swimming too far off track. There was a stretch in the middle of the race that I felt alone. I panicked briefly, but some extra time looking for the next buoy reassured me that I was on course. I went pretty wide coming out of the first turn so I must have gone outside the direct route. However, my GPS shows a fairly straight line between the two buoys. This was not the case in practice on Saturday.

From there it was on to transition, a ten mile bike loop, transition, and a 5k run. Both the bike and run courses were hilly. I found the bike course particularly challenging with some sharp downhill turns that are always a touch hairy for a new cyclist like me. The course was also spectator friendly with the small 1.55 mile run loops. These events can be pretty lonely, but the crowds were quite healthy.
This is a wonderful event that I will have circled on my calendar in 2016.
Run in Peace, Rest in Grace