The guy in front of me wouldn't stop at the end to let me pass even though I had tapped his foot twice. Ended up having to sprint past him which pushed my effort level a little too high and may have slowed me down overall.
(Official time was 8:29 but that includes getting out of the pool and running to T1)

Not sure what I could do differently when it's someone else that affected my performance.

Time includes run from pool and run to the mount line. Official time was 1:31 which is a fairly normal T1 time for me.

Apart from 1 section where I was caught behind a car that was determined to go slightly slower than I wanted to go and that the wind was blowing us about quite a bit, things went pretty much according to plan.

Nothing

Time includes the 25secs that it took to reach T2 from the dismount line. Official time 1:00

Not sure I can do anything to lower my T2 time apart from run faster

If the course distance is accurate, then that is a new PB but the cynical side of me doesn't think I can hold a 7:28/mile for 4.5k and that the course must have been short.

Don't think I could have done anything different on the day but I will be spending the winter training for 5/10k's in an effort to improve my time

Not enough short distance run training.


The bike course has changed from last year and is about 0.5 miles shorter, but I improved my time by 7 mins (I think the wind on the bike made up for the shorter distance!)