That was fun! Really well organized, friendly racers, and great weather. There were 466 racers, though other than the parking lot, it didn’t seem crowded.

Me smiling, post race, with double thumbs up

Swim

Mass start by age group for the swim. Temperature was quite nice. Other than an elbow to the nose coming around the last buoy, a pleasant swim 😀.

Bike

The course confronts you almost right away with a steep 320m climb up the escarpment that really tests the legs. After that, some nice rolling hills, until you come back down the escarpment, hanging on for dear life, as you hit about 70 km/hr. Terrifying and exhilarating end to the ride.

Run

Mostly in wooded trails which is nice. Though still has some hills. Since it is only 7K, you can push it, if anything is left in the legs from the bike.

Transitions

These didn’t go very well. I was rather dizzy coming out of the swim and struggled with balance while getting the bike shoes on in T1. This has happened before and is something I should be training for. So, 3:21 on this one.

Then 2:09 at T2 while I fiddled with my shoe laces. I really should have switched these to elastics. Just didn’t get around to it.

Nutrition

I kept is simple: one caffeinated gel at each of the two transitions and a Nuun in the water bottle for my bike.

Apple Watch

This was my first event with the Apple Watch Ultra. Battery life (the main reason I got one) was excellent. I was at about 90% charge the night before, wore it to track sleeping, and then got to the end of race day around 9pm with close to 60% charge.

I also really liked the Triathlon workout in the Multisport category. The automatic transitions worked really well, marking when I started and stopped each component of the race. So, all I had to do was hit the action button at the start of the swim to start the workout tracking and then stop the workout at the end of the run. Everything else worked automatically. Nice to not have to worry about fiddling with the watch at each transition.