[drew]

The race was this morning, and it was absolutely perfect. Since Hawaii time is 5 hours behind my "normal" time, I was up and chomping at the bit at 4:00 AM. I had a solid breakfast, a great warmup, and just took my time getting prepared.

The weather was absolutely perfect as well. Sunny, about 85 degrees (water temps were around 79 or 80 degrees).

Preliminary results are in, and here are mine:

Total Time - 2 hours, 31 minutes, and 56 seconds.

I don't know what my splits are yet. But this time was good enough for 91st out of approximately 800 competitors, and I was 16th in my age group (not sure how many were actually in my age group).

I am extremely pleased with this race. This was by far my best race...and the longest and hardest one I've ever done. The bike was hilly, but still pretty fast. It was an out-and-back, so all the uphills on the way out turned into downhills on the way back. I hit 36 mph at times...going into the wind! The run was without a doubt the hardest run I've ever done. It also was hilly, and the last two miles were on lava rocks and sand!

I will post pictures and official results as soon as they are in.

Oh yeah, I was competing with TEAM in Training, and I was the first finisher on my team.