Gun went off and immediately a guy got in my way and was heading way off to the right. I tried to get around him and couldn't so I let him pass me and then headed for the buoy. When I got to the buoy, I was in 5th or 6th and then whoever was leading the swim started heading to the wrong area and so I headed to where I knew the swim exit was. Pretty uneventful after that and I came out of the water in first 12 seconds ahead of 2nd.

Attempted to go sockless for the first time since it cost me so much time last time. I think it was successful.

I had ridden the bike course on Friday and so I thought I was in for an easy ride. Unfortunately I had ridden it backwards so it had seemed easy but was in fact much more difficult. I got passed by the eventual winner within a few minutes of mounting the bike and just tried to get into my own rhythm. Once we turned down Brondt, I knew it was going to be difficult. There was a moderate headwind and the course was slightly uphill for most of the ride it felt like. I was pushing hard and struggling to average 17mph for the first 2/3 of the race. Once I finally got back onto Manastash I was able to catch the tailwind and was holding ~30mph for the last 1/3 of the course. I had been expecting to go much faster than this so I was a little disappointed, but it wasn't bad overall. I dropped down into 5th overall by the end of the bike.

Ran in changed shoes, grabbed my belt and left

Took off out of transition and just tried to hang onto my position. Running has always been my weakest event and I was able to only drop 5 places today into 11th. Overall the run was rather uneventful and I was able to hold a nice strong pace.