A weather system came through the previous evening bringing some heavy rain and high winds. The waves were still quite high and and frequent at 5am. At 5:15 (45 minutes before the start of the full course race), the organizers made the call to cancel the swims for both races. It was definitely the right call.

No swim, no T1.

To start the race they had everyone line up according to race number and go off at 5 second intervals. This worked out pretty well because the numbers were already arranged in age order groupings.

I had power and heart rate targets and ended up locking in on a heart rate of 123 because it felt comfortable and it was in line with trying to keep my power at about 150 watts. I felt comfortable for the duration of the ride and believe that I rode the downhills a lot better than last year.

In looking at my numbers from last year (4:09, average 149 watts, average heart rate of 114, 363/692 overall, 43/87 age group), I have to conclude that my power meter was off last year. On my first ride after the race last year, I hit some really high power numbers ended up manual zeroing the power meter. For at least a few days I had myself believing that my critical power had jumped up to near 4 watts/kg....oh well.

Nutrition: I ended up eating 2.5 daifuku (sweet bean in a rice dumpling - these are small, high calorie, 96% carbs and much easier to eat than gels...also cheaper), about 1.5 bottles of sports drink and 3 bottles of water. I started the daifuku about 1 hour in and ate a half every 30 minutes).

Not much really. I can consider pushing the power and heart rate up a little higher. Even more practice on the downhills will also help.

I was actually quite happy with this transition. It included a shirt change because I wanted a looser fitting running shirt. I was wearing a full zip bike jersey so the change was fast. I also pinned race numbers to each of the shirts so I did not need a run belt.

One of these days I will practice flying mounts and dismounts......

I had a pace targets of 5:37-5:40 for the first 5km, 5:21-5:37 for the middle 10km and 5:18-5:21 for the last 5km and heart rate caps of 138 first 5km, 146 middle 10km and 148 last 5km. I ended up adjusting the heart rate cap down a little based on my own feeling because my initial pacing was faster than planned, yet felt really comfortable. For the second 5km, the course is a long slow climb to my pace dropped off a little even though I allowed my HR to move up. The third 5km, was the long slow descent so my my pace picked up again while I kept my HR at the same level. For the last 5km, I brought the pace up just a little, but only hit my HR cap during the last km. All in all, I was very satisfied with how I handled the pacing. The last 5km was tough on my legs and I guess with some more distance and speed work I can dig in deeper for the last 5 km.

They say the course is 20km, but my garmin came out a little over 19km (same as last year). My per km times and average HR are below. Last year my run time was 1:55 and I was 141/692 overall, 18/87 age group.

km split HR
1 5:05 132
2 5:12 136
3 5:21 134
4 5:31 136
5 5:15 136
6 5:25 137
7 5:24 138
8 5:49 140
9 5:22 139
10 5:39 141
11 5:02 143
12 5:11 142
13 5:08 143
14 5:17 143
15 5:32 142
16 5:18 144
17 5:21 143
18 5:20 143
19 5:01 147


Nothing. I like how I ran it. I think that if I tried to push it faster, I would have overheated and spiked my HR.

Drank a little and managed to find a shower that few people knew about - cold water only, but it felt great. I then headed back to my hotel and enjoyed some real food along with a couple of well earned cold ones while watching other folks finishing (they had a live feed on the site that I did not know about).


Only my training level as near as I can tell....


This was their 25th year for the race and clearly they have their act together. The way they handled the bike start was smart. The volunteers were everywhere and did a great job. Add all that to the fact that the course is beautiful and fun (i.e., the bike portion). I will be back again next year and am planning to make a go at the long course.