I was really dreading this swim. Not so much the swim itself but the low water temperature. It was a running start and I just ran in and pretty much started swimming as soon as possible as the underground was quite stony and I hurt my left foot there yesterday when I stepped on a stone. We were only 32 people but I managed to get trapped between 3 other people in the beginning so I slowed down and drafted behind. Goggles came half-way off so I had to stop and fix that. Had to do that 3 more times during the first 300m as they were not completely sealed and I kept getting a bit of water in which was burning on the eyes. Had no problem to sight the first buoy and went pretty much straight there. After the turn around that one the sun was pretty much straight forward and I had a tough time seeing the second one. Found someone to draft and was hoping that he went into the right direction. half way there I finally saw it and started swimming a bit faster and left the 3 people that I was with behind me. I had my sight set on someone else ahead of me and the goal was to get to him and then draft him for a bit. After the 2nd buoy one of my biggest nightmares came through. JELLYFISH! And at this point I was alone and noone close by. I swam into one and started to freak out but knew I had to keep swimming and some relax. After that I saw them everywhere under me and left and right but luckily I did not hit one again. I really increased the speed at that point to get to the person in front of me so that I would not be alone! When the first lap was almost over I was about to be done. I could not imagine going out there again and doing another loop. But I guess I had too. Made an effort to catch the guy in front of me again as he got about 10m ahead of me going into the waves on the way out again and then finally caught him after the first buoy again and I knew I had to stay with him to get through the jellyfish waters without freaking out completely! Because now I knew they were there which made it so much worse. Caught him between the 1st and 2nd buoy and just stayed in his hip and after the 2nd buoy right behind his feet and he kicked so hard that I did not even see the jellyfish ;) That was a good plan! Rest of the way was going well but I reduced my kicking to a minimum during the whole 2nd loop as I felt that the cold temperature took quite a lot of energy out of me. I am sure glad when it was over. Swim time of the race was 29:24 but this included running out of the water, up the beach and over the mat so I counted in 15 seconds for that which I added to T1.

This was way too long but I was so cold after the swim that it was hard to organise my actions. Felt like I had no idea what I was doing there and I needed to remind myself one step at a time to put the helmet on, close the strap, put the glasses on, put the Garmin on, don't forget the number band and finally I was off.

I was really looking forward to this bike. Its a quite technical course with lots of up and down and many turns including one 180 degree turn and one roundabout. But whats nice with a course like this is that you see so many people all the time and that sure helps you to keep going.
Had clear instructions from my coach of how to handle the turns, the head and tailwind and that helped a lot to have that in mind. I also took a gamble and went a lot faster than I would normally have done before a 10K run especially as I have not run 10K in 4 months and hardly managed 8K without knee pain the other day. So I pushed on the bike and I was hoping that I would still be able to run a somewhat decent pace without pain.
The first 5 laps were over before I knew it. They just flew by and it was pretty much "bike and repeat" the entire time. I got to know the laps quite well and that helped to keep up the speed. About half way through the wind started to pick up a bit and the pace per lap dropped by about 10 seconds. Lap 8 I made an effort to get down to the original pace but it took a lot out so I decided to control it again for the last 2 laps. Took 2 sips of water during each lap and then had GU chomps (180 calories) during lap 7 and 8 and more water. Finished my 0.7 liter bottle during the bike and that was more than enough. I did not need more!
All in all a really fun ride especially with all the volunteers and spectators cheering us on during each lap.

Way too long T2! It was the second slowest time of everyone! But my feet were very cold and completely numb and I chose to put on socks for the run which I am really thankful for. Getting the socks on my cold feet took forever though!

I started running and I felt right away that this will be a really good run! I felt like having wings and just took off. When I saw the first km pace it scared the crap out of me though and I was wondering if I can keep this pace but once again I took the gamble and just kept running! I knew how much lead I had over the 3rd girl and I knew what I had to do to keep it. For the first 2.5km my feet were still cold and numb and it is a really weird feeling once they start to wake up. But every run in a Tri is like this for me so I have gotten quite used to it and I often run even better and faster like this.
I had a 800m lead to the 3rd girl on the first turnaround and I knew then that it would be close! At that point I started to feel my left foot. I stepped on something in the ocean yesterday and it has been very sore under the heal ever since. I was hoping it would be gone by this morning but it wasnt. At km 4 the pain was really bad. Felt like someone was putting a knife in my heal every second....I focused on landing more on the front of the foot which helped a bit. While doing that I tried to find a way to ignore the pain and to keep running at the same pace which I knew I had to do to stay 2nd....the turnaround came and it was so nice to see all the people cheering! That sure gave me a boost for the second lap. At that turnaround the distance to the 3rd girl was down to 500m. The foot got better around 6km (or maybe at this point I had succesfully ignored the pain).

The good thing about an out and back course is that you see so many people and can cheer others on which I just love. It gets me more in the spirit and makes me want to do better and go faster
I did not feel my knee at all which surprised me and after the last turnaround I started smiling because I knew I could finish the run and maybe even without knee pain! !
At that last turnaround I had a 300m lead to girl no. 3 and I knew then that if I kept running and picked up the pace over the last 500m I would keep 2nd place!
The last km was tough and with about 500m to go I was about to be done but still managed to pick up the pace a bit and have a good finish!
This was a really good run for me and I paced it perfectly!
Drank nothing during the run. Finishing the bottle on the bike was enough!

My Garmin (which stopped and turned off by itself after about 1km) showed the distance (incl. the distance where it was off which I mapped out and added-220m) at 9.91km so with factoring in three 180 degree turns the course was pretty much exactly 10km and that means I got a 6 minutes PB for the 10K distance! Yeah :)

Finished the race in 2:41:25 which is exactly a 30minutes PB for the Olympic triathlon! I am thrilled!