Last Splash & Dash of the Season

Continuing my streak of beating my expectations (Lost Pines, Austin Tri, Wurst Tri), last night's final Splash & Dash for the year was my quickest yet- both the swim + transition and the run. Thanks to heavier than expected traffic, I barely made it in time. I had only a couple of minutes to get my shoes laid out and my swim cap and goggles on. I was glad for a couple minutes' delay of the usually punctual 6:00 start to have a chance to settle down and prepare myself. After the first ~50 meters, I swam the whole course breast stroke. I wore a different top than I have previously, and at least initially felt as though it might have slowed me down some, as I didn't feel like I was getting any glide from my stroke. It felt better later in the course, so maybe it was either my perception or the wind (not that it was particularly strong). Just based on the others in the water, it seemed like I was having a good swim: I seemed to be somewhere in the middle of the men, and only saw a couple of women (who started 3 minutes after the men). Once I was out of the water and started on the run, I had the quantifiable data: My swim + transition time was 15:59, shattering my previous best of 17:45. I started running at too quick of a pace, spurred on by the faster company. I pulled it back to a more reasonable pace for the rest of the first 1k lap, second lap, and most of the third lap (I had just enough left for a sprint finish). My lap times were 5:05, 5:16 and 5:08, which together improved on my previous best run of 16:01. My full course time of 31:29 was amazingly a full 3 minutes off of my previous best (in July). Not only am I pleased with my time, I was pretty stoked that I was not that far behind my friend MG, who's been at it for a lot longer. For the first time, I exited the water before her (her being 2 minutes quicker swimming wasn't enough to overcome the 3 minute head start), and she passed me near the end of the second lap of the run and beat me by 3:38 overall.