The sighting techniques and tips worked great for me. I was overly concerned that I would be one of those who overshot and ended up having to get picked up by boat and repositioned. As it turned out, I nailed the beach dead on. Very pleased with that, but I felt I spent too much time stopping to sight.

Practice and learn to sight while swimming.

I was a bit groggy and confused coming out of the water. I had trouble taking off my wet suit at the beach transition location as well as putting on my shoes. I had problems getting the suit over my feet and ended up sitting down. Once sitting, I got cramps in my stomache muscles. I had heard of others experiencing this before, but this was a first time for me. Once I got to bike transition, I also spent more time than I had wished putting on my socks over wet feet. In my local sprint triathlons, I do not wear socks, but I am glad I did for this race, esp later once running though the sand. I think this race is too long to do without socks.

I would have used Pam or other lube on my wetsuit. I normally do, but didn't bring any this trip. Should have borrowed, lots of people had it and I am sure would have loaned me some. I also would have used a different pair of socks. The ones I had were thin biking socks and were very difficult to put on over my wet feet. I did briefly dry my feet.

I rented a road bike from Blazing Saddles. It was an aluminum Marin. I did drop the chain once while shifting from the big to small ring up front. However, overall I was very pleased with the quality of the bike and would highly recommend them to anyone considering renting a bike for this race. It was far cheaper to rent a bike than to ship or fly my own bike out.

Practice the course once or twice before the race if possible. I had my family with me and we were doing the Griswold family vacation and just didn't have time to ride the course beforehand. One guy I talked to rented one of those yellow banana cars and motored around the course a few days before the race. Great idea. Beautiful course!

Not much to say here. Ran into T-2 with my bike shoes on. I don't do the flying mount/dismount thing. Took a little time to eat a GU pack and drink some water.

Nothing.

Loved it. Another beautiful view of parks, beach and ocean.

Nothing really except train more. Eight miles is a long way.

I did nothing for warm down except walk the 2 miles back to the hotel. I had relatives waiting for me, so I left fairly quickly. I would have liked to hang around the venue more.


Not knowing what to expect. More training.


This race was one of the most exciting and fun events I have ever done in my entire life! I am so glad I did it and would highly recommend it to anyone else. All three aspects, the swim, bike and run were unique, beautiful and challenging. It was expensive when combining air travel, hotel, food, etc, but well worth it to do this race if even only once. If you've done this race before, you know what I am talking about. If you have never done this race before, try to get in it sometime, you won't regret it.