The course was shorter than it was supposed to be, possibly because of the winds blowing the buoy's. My 310XT gave a course distance of around 650 meters, which is probably about right.
Transition times aren't posted, so this time is from my 310XT. The swim exit was almost 1/3 of a mile from T1, uphill. There were lots of rocks the whole way, although they put carpet remnants down a lot of the way to help. I brought a second pair of running shoes to help get from the swim exit to T1 and this helped a lot. It was still several minutes to get to the transition area.

I noticed my swim is less streamlined in open water because I look too far forward (much different than in the pool). This slows me down a lot and requires more energy. More practice on open water would help a lot, along with more confidence in my open water skills.

The run from water exit to transition took up the majority of my T1 time. Many people brought sandals or flip-flops and had a really hard time running up the hill.

I forgot to un-velcro my bike shoes. A real PITA! Probably lost 10-15 seconds because of this.

The bike is my strongest leg. I felt pretty good after the swim, and was able to push hard on the bike. The hills really took their toll on a lot of the competitors.

I could have pushed a little harder on the uphills. It was a two-circuit course and I didn't have the chance to ride it beforehand. While I drove it the night before, it didn't give a really good feel of how and where to attack on the hills.

It was a good transition.

It was definitely more hill than I was expecting! I was only passed by a few people, and actually passed one or two. The run is traditionally my weakest sport but I've been working on it quite a bit. I'm pleased with my split but think I can do better with more training.
The course description and the actual course were very different. The description included another steep hill before the run-in at the end but it was left out of the actual run. I conserved a little extra energy for this hill but ended up not needing to. I don't think it affected may overall standings.

I'm starting to work in additional speed work for training. If I had paid a little more attention during the pre-race talk I might have found out about the missing final hill.

Walked around, chatted with a few people.


Conditioning. I felt like my body had more to give but at the same time my HR was way up and I couldn't push myself any harder on the run. I could also use more OWS practice to gain more confidence in open water.


The race was well-run. There are no finishers medals that I'm aware of. I'm OK with that, but some people might like to have them.

I was little disappointed that the preliminary results had me 15th overall and 3rd in my AG, only to check later and see that a few more people were squeezed in leaving me 18th overall and 4th in my AG. I don't know how they cold miss a few people at the beginning like that, but I guess these things happen. I was pretty excited to get my first AG medal. I just need to train harder, the medals will come. It was nice to be near the FOP though.