The water was ridiculously cold. The day before they measured the temp at 72, but we had a very cold night and the shallow water cooled quickly. Sadly, they didn't inform us of the new temp until about 10 minutes to start.
Hitting that water was an extreme shock to the body! I actually forgot to put my goggles down and didn't start my watch, so I had a rough first 100 or so. I actually thought about dropping out because my forehead, fingers and toes were hurting from the cold. However, I kept plugging through and actually ended up with one of my best swim times ever!

I think one drawback was the space between buoys. It actually made it very difficult to sight because they were few and far between and there weren't really any good landmarks to sight off of.

Make sure that the goggles are down and do a better job sighting.

This was weird because you had to completely clean up your T1 before leaving on the bike. This caused some delays.
Also, I honestly came out of the water in a daze because of the cold temps. My feet were completely numb and I had trouble running into T1.
So my T1 sucked because of taking time to ensure everything was bagged up, my own confusion and messing with my watch to try and get it reset after screwing up the swim

Just need to be faster coming through. I doubt I'll ever be one of those guys who can hop on his bike and put shoes on, but I could still be more organized and quicker coming through

The course is actually very nice and not too challenging. Almost no hills and not very technical so you can pretty much go.
The downside is that you have to pedal for the entire 56 miles, and my legs were clearly feeling it by the last 15 or so. Coupled with the headwind, I had a bad stretch from mile 35 on.


Still working on the bike leg

For me, I did pretty well in T2. Took a little extra time to scarf down a bonk breaker bar and drink some extra fluid.
Sadly, there was no bathroom in T2 and the volunteers told me that I would have to leave the area to pee. I made the decision to just start running and find a spot on the course.

I think I did alright. I need to buy some quick laces for my shoes, because I spent unnecessary time tying them

The over-exertion on the bike really affected my run. I began to run out of gas about 9 miles in and really struggled to bring it home.
Sadly, because of my early watch mishaps, I had no idea where I was in terms of overall time. If I had known how close to a sub 6 that I was, I bet I could have found a few seconds out there somewhere.

Post-race stretches to loosen calves and hamstrings


early cold, late day heat is a bad combination.

Over-pedaled on the bike which caused me to run out of gas towards the end of the run


For an inaugural race, I thought they did a great job. Some minor tweaks to make it better next year, but I would definitely recommend this race!

Don't let the "flat" course description fool you, this actually turned out to be a very tough race!