Four people in a lane. Two at each end. Circle swim. Lapped each of the three swimmers in my lane two or three times.
I was a little fatigued by the end. Garmin data shows I was taking a lot more stroked per length as the race went on:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/209655670
Overall not bad given how little I've been swimming. About the same time as last year.

Not skip so many swim workouts. Not go out as hard.

I was happy with this. Although I had a long run: out of the pool around a cone, out to the parking lot, to the far end of transition, and all the way through transition to my bike in the third row. Once I got there, helmet and sunglasses were on in a wink, and I was running with my bike to the mount line. Learned my lesson from last year and didn't try to put my feet in my shoes right away. I mounted and pedaled uphill with my feet on the pedals until I got to a flat, then slipped into the shoes.

Nothing

Didn't press my watch correctly, so the bike registered as transition: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/209655675
The Garmin file includes most of my T2 time.
Bike was a tale of two cities for me. The steeper uphills and downhills were great. On the prolonged climbs, I felt like I couldn't get anything going. I never shifted out of my large chainring. The 11-27 cassette seemed to help on the steeper hills, but I think I missed some of the granualrity of the 12-25.
Effort was there, and drinking (one bottle of Infinit) was good. The result was 8 minutes better than last year, so I was happy with this overall. Cycling just continues to be the weakest link.

Work on incorporating my small chainring. More time in the saddle. Better pedaling economy.

T2 clock time was included in bike time. I subtracted 2:00 from that and added it here.
I learned from getting surprised by the dismount line at the Pittsburgh Olympic race and got my feet out of my shoes early. The last part of the course was mostly downhill so I felt no disadvantage in pedaling with my feet on top of my shoes for a little bit. Pretty much just rode to a stop at the imaginary dismount line and ran the bike to transition.
Helmet off easily and shoes (with Yankz! and no socks) on quickly. Grabbed my hat and ran to the timing mat.

I think the next skill for me to learn is a running dismount. I hadn't tried it, so I wasn't about to try it in a race.

I felt pretty fatigued from the bike going into this run. I knew I'd had trouble with the hills last year, but that my training has been taken up a level this year.

I couldn't get much of a GPS signal in the woods, so I relied on RPE to determine pace. Race plan said to pick up the pace with 1 1/2 miles to go, but I didn't feel like I'd be able to sustain any meaningful increase that long, so I held steady until maybe a half mile to go and finished strong on the final asphalt section. Average HRZ was 4.6 so seemed like a solid effort.

Was worried about getting caught by stronger runners (including Gary & Melissa), but that didn't happen, and my run split was actually faster than theirs! Caught Matt Meade on the run.

While effort was there, the fatigue I was feeling made me think this would be a slow run. Was very pleased with the time once I saw the splits. Only 1:24 off of my (flat course) standalone 5K time in February.

I set my watch to alert me when my cadence dropped below 90 spm, but that didn't help much because I was always either below that on the uphills or well above it on the downhills. might be useful on a flat course though.

Didn't turn my Garmin off right away, so the time Garmin time is a little off:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/209655693

Reconsider what data fields to show on my watch given the weak GPS signal.

Walked around. First sprint race I haven't wanted to lie on the ground.


Cycling fitness and economy.


This race needs timing pads for the transition areas. It's over 400 people now. Atmosphere is nice and viewing is very family friendly. My family was able to see the entire swim, watch T1 and walk up to the bike course where they could see me pass 10 times on the bike by moving a couple of hundred feet back and forth. Run is out of view, but they were there for the finish. Didn't stick around for festivties afterwards, but there were some tents set up and food and drink for athletes.