I'm late on my race report so I'll make it short.
The Boys Ranch Tri (a short Olympic distance race, about 1000m swim, 18mi bike, and 5.5 mile run was what I measured) was located up by the Suwannee River (with the swim actually in the river), and we actually made it a camping weekend (sort of).
Turns out camping in August in FL isn't the greatest idea unless you like sleeping in what feels like 120 degree temperatures. When we arrived at our originally planned campsite in the state park it turned out they locked the gate at sundown, so we drove around aimlessly until we found our way to the Suwannee River Music Camp, which actually ended up being a really nice place. Luckily the second night we smartened up and went to the Holiday Inn Express as shortly after we packed up the campsite the heavens opened up and a rain and lightningfest ensued.
The next day for the race though the weather was great, minus the river current caused by the rain the day before. It was flashbacks to China as I fought against it upstream on both loops. The bike was quick, just a couple small 9 mile loops that I spent all of trying to catch my friend. She was doing her first every triathlon and is a strong swimmer, so she had an 8 minute lead coming out of the water. I managed to catch her right at the end of the bike much to her dismay, and decided to accompany her for the full run. She impressed everyone including herself by only walking through a water stop a couple times total and running the rest even though this is one of the longer runs she has done.
They haven't but up results yet but we both got nice photo frames, me for being 2nd of 2 in my age group, and her for being the 1st of 1 in the first timer division. There were only about 35 people in the race for both the sprint and olympic combined, so almost everyone got some kind of award, and it was a great first timer race for those who want to take up a lot of room in transition near your friends and just have it be really low stress in comparison to the larger ones I have done.
Next week is my longest pre-Ironman ride at the Tri-States century ride through AL, GA, and FL which I'll somehow lengthen into a 6 hour ride.
I'm then headed to NM for two weeks for work, then to CA for DL, then to WI for the IM. Yikes.
GO! WISH Team GO! 
