The swim back to shore had the sunrise coming in on the left side so breathing on the left was tough when needing to sight for the swim-in chute.
Getting through the pack was tougher on this race, had people trying to swim up my backside and it never seemed like they would correct their positioning after enough strokes. Plus I had a painful sprain in my right hand so slamming into the water and being carefree on my catch wasn't possible

I had a couple of extra steps in T1 due to my hipsack and watch I was putting on early.

I think I can still get it under 2mins even with the extra steps, just have to practice it beforehand to execute in races

Mostly quite country roads that took you around the lake. While the intersections and some turns were manned by police road marshals, there were still idiot car traffic and they were coming alongside the bikers pretty close and too fast. The cops chewed them out when the got to stops but it got pretty dangerous if you weren't looking over your shoulder during passes.

TRAIN!

Took time to start my running app on my cell (which went back into the hipsack mentioned above. I still think I can get this going on the run and shave seconds off my time.

Training overall hasn't been too consistent but it was so hot it might not have even mattered. I'd like to be sub-8:00/mile by the 4th event to show my progress and return to historical pacing.

Doused in water, and straight to the fruit in the chow line!


Just lack of consistent training cycles. The hills were tough but it's such a tough race they shouldn't cause a load up of fatigue and poor performance. I'll monitor my progress across the next 3 events and we'll see if they improve :)


The venue, race course, and event as a whole is very well run and really enjoyable to participate in. I guess some inter-webs rumblings suggested that their timing systems were not up to par and awards ceremonies were delayed because of it. I'm not near the top finishers so that part of the event is not something I'm going to score low on in my book. I had enough to eat afterwards and strolled out of the event location without incident so to me it's a win-win for this event.
Looking fwd to the remaining 3 in the series to track improvements!
l