Swim to Bike Transition (T1)

I did hear people yelling my name on my way into transition and I think I remember spotting Laurie and Sergio from the BTC but didn’t catch the faces of anyone I knew, I was just so relieved to be done with the swim.

After I grab my T1 bag I head into the women’s changing tent – OMG – I’ll save the details of this for a subsequent “Ironman Confidential” post about the things they don’t tell you – but I can say that I was surprised at how crowded it was. I was glad for that because it meant I wouldn’t be dead last heading out of transition. The tent was steamy and what wasn’t flooded was muddy and I wondered just how hard it had rained during the swim. I was trying to change my shoes but found myself standing ankle deep in water – finally I threw a towel down in the mud and was able to get my socks and shoes on and one of the volunteers helped me un-roll the Cadence Tri top I was trying to get into. Helmet was on but then I fumbled around for my gloves, which I typically don’t wear, but because of the weather decided I’d need them to avoid having my hands slip all over the handle bars. As I looked through my transition bag I realized the one thing I did forget was to put a rain jacket in my T1 bag – I had thought about it and intended to do so that morning but never brought it with me. There was nothing I could do about it now. I just hoped it wasn’t going to be too cold.