I had been 5 years since my last 70.3 triathlon.  In 2004 it took me a painful 6+ hours to complete.  This year I finished under 5:45 and felt pretty good except for a high heart rate due to the heat.

My cousin, who had never raced a triathlon before, thought that 70.3 would be a good start.  It was a treat to watch him race.  Always just ahead in the distance he was and I was never able to catch him.  :)

Thanks to the great support crew we traveled with and met while in Florida.  I would actually consider doing this race again.

This was another good race for me.  This was the same course I raced last year (the weather conditions were about the same).  I didn't wear a wetsuit this year on the swim, so I just had a nice leisurely swim leg. Being a hilly International distance triathlon bike course, I had a strong bike (staying in the small chain-ring the entire ride).  I didn't eat the morning of the race which worked out well (something I have had success with all year).  Here were my times:

Swim: 00:32:15 (last year 00:32:18 with a wetsuit)
Bike: 01:21:34 (last year 01:23:07)
Run: 00:47:13 (last year 00:49:00)
Total time: 02:44:04 (last year 02:47:03)

This was the start of my '09 triathlon season.  Even though this was a wetsuit legal race I opted to go without because I am more confident in my swimming this year.  I took it really easy on the swim

My race broke down as follows (transitions are part of the times but not sure how they break down since the transition timers were not functioning properly):

swim 750 meters - 00:15:01
bike 14 miles - 00:41:10
run 5k - 00:22:29
overall time - 01:18:39

One thing I changed in my race was not eating that morning before the swim.  I loaded up the night before and didn't start eating until I hit the bike.  This seemed to work well.  I had read about this strategy in a Hammer Nutrition article but never tried it.  I had noticed in the past that if I ate in the morning before a race, no matter how much I ate, I felt hungry before even getting into the water for the swim.  I plan to race the rest of 2009 this way.

Thanks to all of my cheerleaders out on the course. :)