Megan Riepma, Pro Triathlete: March 2012

I remember the first time I clipped my shoes onto my bike for T1 during a triathlon and declared; "this is either going to be great, or its going to be a disaster." It was GREAT, I saved a lot of time in transition and mounted my bike much faster. I wish I could say the same of my recent exploit in saving time in my transitions. I've been skipping socks for the run in order to save time in transition and during this race, which included a beach run and a course that resembled something of an obstacle course and car dodging mayhem, it seemed to be a disaster.
This is my first year as a pro and has definitely been more of a challenge, but also great at the same time. The practice swim on friday was alot of fun. I practiced in my new Blueseventy Swimskin (PZ3Tx) and my new Blueseventy siren goggles. I have to say that out of all the goggles I've used to race in; these are definitely the best, no fogging and no sunglare! The water was very rough and choppy making it hard to spot buoys. I actually prefer it to be a bit choppy and was hoping that race conditions would be the same. Unfortunately race day the winds had calmed down for the mornings swim of two laps in Playa Conchal in Costa Rica. I exited the water having to chase down the girls in front of me. The swim is a bit of a weak point and I'm working on my swimming and getting used to drafting off others and staying with the group.
The bike course was a bit brutal, it starts off on a short section of gravel leaving transition and climbs and grinds up a long steep hill. The total elevation gain on this course is around 2300 ft. The bike was going pretty well until the final two miles. I lost my chain and had to stop to fix it, costing me probably around 30-45 seconds. Next I hit the gravel section and it jarred me and the bike so bad that I lost my chain again and it jammed into the gearing and couldn't be undone. I ended up running my bike about 150 meters into transition!
Onto the run, it started on the beach and at times was a bit hard to tell where I was supposed to be running. I ended up developing huge silver dollar blisters somewhere around mile 2 and just suffered to get to the end of the race. Lessons learned on a difficult course! I ended up Tenth overall and on a tough course against stiff competition, I'll take it.