Portland, Oregon is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in the United States!  Of course it seemed that much more spectacular that the weather was in the 60's and 70's the whole day, with very low humidity -  something that is unheard of in Austin, Texas in the summertime. I had just gotten over a pretty bad cold coming in to this race, and my fitness level was considerably lower than last year, but I have also done some really hard training.  My outlook for the race was positive, and I had a clear goal to win my age group and do well overall. Before the race we saw some folks we met last year at Worlds in Switzerland, including our friend Stephen Jonas.  I also got to hang out with my Team Sirius training  buddies Karen Burks, Kathleen Ebert, and Liz Supples.   Jude took some cute pictures of us as we pumped each other up for a great race .  He also got a good one of me in front of the beautiful lake.

As the gun went off for my wave to start I just sprinted out as hard as I could, kicking and pulling with all my might.  I was nervous because I could not see ANY of the first bouys due to the glare on the water, but I thought "No problem, I will see them when I get closer." One disadvantage of being near the front in the swim is that often I am not following anyone - I have to see the bouy and turn with no one to lead the way.  This turned out to be a problem, as I got lost and I had to stop and get my bearings to know where I was going.  I did this two times, and started to see women who are usually at least 30 seconds behind me in the swim.