Firstly, swimming with a strong current rocks, I wish I could do it in all my races!

I was pretty relaxed getting into the water at the start, and had positioned myself about 15-20' from the right hand side to avoid the outside scrum at the start. Start was a little boisterous, but nothing more than a few elbows, however a couple of minutes into the swim as I just got into my rhythm I swallowed a bit of water and ended up with a gagging sensation that meant I needed to flip onto my back for 4-5 seconds to regroup. After that I got back into rhythm, pushed out to the rightmost side of the course to make the most of the current and seemed to catch and pass several people in my wave which is a first for me.
Nearly went wide of the buoys at the swim exit and ended up with the current knocking me sideways into the first mark.

I never breathe every stroke in practice, but I always tend to race that way. Although I breathe both sides reasonably, it made sense to breathe to the left and use the distance from the river wall to navigate, but as a result I felt that my stroke was asymmetric and not very efficient. Need to work on every stroke breathing in my training, no good being a reasonable 3-5 stroke per breath pool swimmer if I never race that way.

8th in division, didn't feel rushed, but have not quite mastered kicking my ankles out of the suit

Nothing much, but can always improve

With my first HIM coming up in four weeks I had decided to race keeping an eye on my HR and try and keep it below mid Zone 4, particularly on the climbs to avoid going into the red zone which I usually do. As I result I didn't attack any of the rolling climbs as hard as I would have normally done and I just spun them at high cadence, with little increase in HR. The result of this was I ended up being disappointed with my time, particularly as I was running a pair of Zipp 808s (courtesy of Race Day Wheels) for the first time.

Push much harder like I normally do. That said, the discipline to hold HR during the race was a good exercise ahead of Timberman and my time wasn't that bad really.

5th in division and felt fast but unrushed

Not bother taking Garmin off bike. I thought it would help me pace, but I didn't bring the wrist strap and I just left it in one of my jersey rear pockets for the duration of the run - 10 seconds lost I guess.

I had high hopes for the run, particularly as I had done the ride in such a controlled way. I decided to bring a small hand flask with Infinit in it for the first part of the run (must remember to pick it up from the bush I threw it in in Central Park!) and this was actually really good as I could take some fluid while running on the flat of 72nd St and also avoid stopping at the first few aid stations.
I'm not good in humidity, and although the conditions weren't that bad I really felt like I was overheating on the run. I was shooting for 7:45-7:50 for the run so was disappointed to find that I'd gone over 8

I recovered very quickly at the finish line and didn't really feel that tired for the rest of the day which indicates to me that I should have pushed harder on the run as per normal. I'm a relatively inexperienced runner so I think I just need to get a few more training seasons under my belt to improve run pace and build the ability to push myself on the run like I can on the bike.

Met my wife and drank a lot of fluids.


Mainly focusing on controlling HR during bike section


I only rated the event as a three as I feel the organizers could have done more to make the bike leg safer, both by giving competitors new to the NYC Tri more specific verbal guidance in the briefing as to passing / road position etiquette and perhaps also by considering a different way to phase the start waves so you didn't get large groups of fast cyclists trying to get past large groups of slow cyclists (but that's a tough call).
Overall though, it's in the second best city in the world (after my native London) so it is still a great place to race.