Shuttles depart the host hotel around 5>515am. T1 is at the dockyards and the ferry leaves at 7am sharp. It is a nice and stable high speed ferry with catamaran styled hull...all 250 participants (pros and all) are on the boat. After the short cruise out it is anchors down and time to jump off for the mass swim start. It takes close to 10 minutes for the swimmers to jump...The pros are w/o wetsuits and noticeably antsy as the surf temp is about 72. The race weather was totally different from '07 (when we had waves flowing with us and you literally could body surf). The route is about 1 mile, the first .6 in open water then the final .4 or so in the 'protected' marina area through a fairly tight 30 yard opening to target. This year the right side breathers were screwed with 2-3 ' side chop from the right along with a very bright sun on the horizon. There was also a moderate current this year coming right at us. I felt really smooth the entire swim. This was probably one of my top swims of the year despite coming in a minute over last year.

T1 was a disaster...I slipped coming up the steps out of the water, couldn't get my right leg out of my wetsuit for the life of me, my helmet unsnapped and my bike almost tipped over in the process of getting re buckled...lovely....

T2...The racks are set up by age group..there were 2 bikes..one guy slowly getting his run shoes and the local...I was reinvigorated and had my best T2 ever..I was neck and neck with the local and we left the other guy on the ground still fumbling with his run sneakers

The run is a 2 loop course...there is a strong and steady hill at the start, a small village then an awesome 1 mile stretch along the ocean with some small hills..mile 3 is a killer with 2 very steep and long hills with a final downhill back into town...I was running stride for stride with the local up the first hill...towards the top he found a gear I just do not have right now...I found my rhythm and kept a strong 7 min/mi pace..before mile 2 I caught one of my age groupers and on the last hill of mile 3 I caught the other...I had one loop to go and I think I have one runner to catch for Alcatraz...I ran as aggressive as possible but it wasn't meant to be...the local ran a sub 40 min 10k with those hills

Going down the final hill I knew 1st was out of the question but I heard another racer from behind....he wanted my place badly and was trying to chase me down. I had enough in the tank to hold him off...but it was the 1st time I was looking over my shoulder to hold off a racer since my days in High School X-Country.