No splits provided as of this writing. The start was typical Mass-Start. I had never (up to this point in time) done a mass start this large but I got fairly used to the start at the beginning. The navigation and draft were TOUGH. You literally couldn't see your hand in the water due to the runoff from the local forestry.

I tried to draft but problem was most of the time I got stuck behind some "kicker" who just kept kicking their legs in 4-6 beat fashion. I tried to find a 2-beat kicker (so I could track them better) but never found or hung onto them when i did find them.

Need to navigate better. Gosh, my navigation was off. Part of it was I was drafting of a person who didn't track well. The part of it was I just didn't get enough OW experience up to this point (my last OW swim was over a month prior to this race).

This was an Ironman, so there is no way in hell I'm running/mounting my bike at the same time. I took quite sometime in T1.

The biggest challenge is getting your race singlet on after a swim. It is a LOT tougher than imagined as your body is already flexed and wet from the swim. It's really that hard to get a simple shirt on.

Put my race shirt/singlet under my wetsuit next time. Also, need to be more informed of Transition procedures, this was my first IM-triathlon. I wasted a lot of time in T1. But otherwise, T1 went rahter smoothly

My weakest leg turned out to be my best performing discipline of the day. The average cadence came in about 85 rpms and that was taking into consideration of the hills. The speed and legs felt sharp throughout the bike. The only problem I had was with urinating, as it was painful to urinate at times. Part of the reason was my problems hydrating early in the bike and the fact that I decided to try out a new saddle prior to the race...

Um... not to try out a new saddle before the race?
Need to get re-fitted on the bike as well..

T2 went by faster. No change of clothes, just switched sneakers, grab a breather. Relaxed as much as I could to prepare for the run.

Not much

1st in the age-group. The funny thing was I thought I ran the marathon terribly! There was no "run" at the end, just some quick "JOG" more than anything else.

Reality set in at around Mile 10. There was no "blowing up" but just a nice big fat BONK after the 10 mile mark. The whole problem is I had to use the restroom at Mile 10 and after that restroom break, I never recovered the momentum I had for the first 9 miles. Whereas I was running around 8:30 min/mile, after the restroom break, my fastest mile was 8:55 from that moment onwards.

At that point, the race turns into a battle of mental toughness. Physically, there is really nothing left in one's body at this moment. It's all mental and throughout the entire time, I remained focused on just moving forward. Just JOG. There were a ton of people walking at this moment so I just convinced myself to NOT STOP and keep jogging. Keep moving, go go go... There was not much fan support around but the silence allowed me time to "reflect" on my day. There was a lot of thinking and reflecting at this time, just to keep my mind off the pain and torture of the run...

Not much. Despite the loss of speed, I finished very pleased with the effort. While my run time was significantly slower than I anticipated, i was just happy to finish without having to walk the marathon. That to me was my ultimate goal...