Went out in front and to the outside and quickly found some clean water in the middle. First stretch went pretty smooth and I had pretty good navigation. I thought I could stay with the first pack, but got dropped off and lost the draft.

Rounded the first buoy and headed down the back stretch. Drifted a little to the outside, but not as bad as usual and was staying with a couple of other guys. Now, the swim was setup with many small buoys and a few large buoys. I assumed the large buoys were the turn buoys, so when I passed a large buoy, I turned and was headed back for the home stretch. Two sight attempts not seeing anymore buoys, I stopped and treaded to get a look and quickly discovered, I had turned early. I swam back on course and then finished the back stretch. I don't know how far I went and probably only lost 30" or so in the ordeal.

Rounded the last bouy and headed home; nothing interesting here and by my count on the bike, got out of the water 8'th in the wave.

I also believe the course was a bit long, judging by the fastest time of a 14:30; usually it's in the 12:xx range.

Obviously pay more attention to the course and not assume all large buoys were turn buoys. I also could have upped the effort and maybe even stay on the feet of the faster guys; I gave up on drafting too easily.

Nothing special here. Smooth and not hurried.

This was my fear for this race. I didn't exactly come into this race trained on the bike and really didn't know what to expect. My goal was to go as fast as I could while taking it easy :)

Right off the bat, I had some trouble getting into my shoes and just did before the climb onto the road. Once on the road, got passed almost immediately, but found a good pace and felt good. I on the "out", I kept a solid pace on the flats and tried not to destroy myself on the hills. Coming back, I reversed the philosophy and took it a little easy on the sustained effort and hammered up the hills. I still don't know which was better, but I'm very happy with this ride based on my bike training this year.

Again, nothing special ... didn't rush and didn't take a nap either

From the start of the run, I was feeling pretty beat up. I was keeping an under 8 min/mi pace, but struggling more than I wanted at that point. Biggest problem was the knife-stabbing pain in my neck/shoulder. Walked the first aid station and got the pain to go away temporarily. Hit the first mile at 7:50, so I'm not too bad off and started to pick up the pace a bit. Got the pain in the shoulders again, so I walked it out for a bit again, then took off. After this, I started feeling a bit better and pushed the pace again. Mile two in 7:41 and feeling pretty good, so I marked one guy in front to reel in.

Slowly pulling him in, I think I'm pacing it about right to make a move with 1/4 mi left. I get about 10 yards behind and see a slight hill in front. I went pretty hard up the hill and passed him in the middle hoping it would keep him from hanging on ... and it did. Then, I was catching up to the next guy and he picked up his pace keeping me just behind him. I found a little more and he kept in front for about 100 yards, then I overtook him with about another 150 yards to go and never looked back to see where he was, finishing with a 7:11 final mile.