I started off right beside Alex. The last two years he finished ahead of me so I figured I might get some draft off him. Once the gun went off, the two of us were off the front right away. I went in and sat on his right hip but within a minute or two he started to drift back. I just maintained my effort and was first to the turn buoy. I figured he was right on my feet which was not what I wanted! However after turning at the second buoy I took a peek and he was 10-15 feet behind me. I just maintained my effort for the rest of the swim - not hard enough to gas myself but a good strong effort. Almost took a jellyfish to the face at one point - that would have sucked.

Not much. I'm not in fantastic swim shape since my 3weeks in France but my workouts in the last week or so have been decent so I think I executed about right.

The water exit to T1 is about a 200m run. Good thing too because I struggled with getting my wetsuit zipper undone and it took me about half of the run to T1 to get it open. From there things went smoothly.

Remember to use my left hand to open the flap on my wetsuit!

Did my usual semi flying mount and then left my feet on top of my shoes while going up the first hill right out of transition. Once over the top and up to speed I put my feet in and settled into the aerobars and power targets. Once I turned out of the park I saw Tab up the road (she did the Du). After a couple of minutes I went past her choosing "Hey sexy" over "On your left". ;)

For the first 9km I was right around my power target and feeling pretty good. Around that point we went down a hill and near the top there was a volunteer at a road. I didn't quite catch what she said but near the bottom of the hill was a road to the right and a road sign saying that the town of Cardigan was that way. I remembered hearing in the race briefing that we would turn right at the round about and go through Cardigan from there. However there was nothing indicating we should turn there. I have done a previous race that used that road before and the doubt settled into my head. I couldn't see any other riders ahead of me and part way up the hill I decided I should have turned and turned around. As I got back to the bottom another rider came down and went past the turn. Fuck! I turned back around and started going back up. According to my Garmin I lost 45 seconds doing that. I rode a.n.g.r.y. for the next 5 or 10 mins - mostly at myself but I was also angry that every road up to that point had an indicator of whether or not it was a turn or straight through. Ultimately though I know I screwed up - it made no sense that there would be a turn there with no markings at all.

After calming down a bit, I got to Cardigan (from the back road...) and there is a tough little hill to climb. 290w at 12 km/hr isn't fun - Tab said she saw one guy tip over on the way up. From there we got onto a long stretch of new pavement with a bit of tailwind. I couldn't see any riders in front of me at all along this stretch. After turning right we got onto a road with a horrible section of pavement. Out of the aerobars and just aiming for the less bumpy sections. Fortunately it wasn't too long. The rest of the ride was uneventful coming into T2. I was happy to look behind me and not see anyone catching me.

http://www.strava.com/activities/165441494

Duh - know the course. I would have had the fastest bike split if I hadn't been an idiot.

Uneventful. Not super fast, not too slow.

Be a bit smoother.

There is a 300 meter hill right out of T2 that isn't terribly hard but enough to get your attention. I didn't want to kill myself here so I just kept a steady smooth effort and evaluated how the legs felt (just fair). As I got near the top, I saw Alex coming in off the bike in 2nd place. I glanced at my watch and saw 1:33 so with the rest of his ride and transition I figured I had about a 2:30 head start. Not too comforting when I know he can run 18 mins if he's in good shape. He was followed shortly by 3 others including Gaetan who can run a 39 min 10k with a double stroller.... also not good.

My legs weren't really feeling great but I just tried to keep the effort high in the hopes that they would come around a bit. First KM was 4:33 - not bad with the two hills but not great. Once on the trail, I felt like I could run a little more steady and just ran at the pace that i felt a little too hard. Second KM was 4:33 again - hmm....

At the turnaround I glanced at my watch to see what the time gap was going to be. When I looked up the trail, I was surprised to not see any of the chasers yet. It was a full minute+ before Gaetan went by. At that point I figured I still had a chance and kept going as hard as I could manage. Shortly after I saw Alex and Pete and didn't think they were going to catch me. I didn't look back until back out on the road and past the 4k mark. I still had a good gap on Gaetan but he was closing fast. With half of a KM left there is one little hill, I took one more look and powered up the hill as best as I could and ran to the finish hard. Crossed the line and just layed down on the grass. Gaetan crossed the line 18 seconds later, he ran a low 19 min 5.2k and told me he needed it to be 6 km. :)

http://www.strava.com/activities/165438426

I dunno, it worked out pretty well.

Being in France for 3 weeks resulting in no riding or swimming and less than normal running. Followed up by some knee trouble when I got back into training.