Hills, Hills, Hills...what more can you say. All complaining aside what an amazing event. Wildflower was my first Olympic distance TRI and only my second race period so needless to say the nearly 3000 participants were a bit overwhelming. I have to say the team who put the race together did an amazing job. Got up around 4:30 in the morning to make the 2 hour or so drive from Santa Maria up to the lake. Parking, checking in, setting up the T...everything was a breeze. Can’t say enough about how well such a large even was organized. So 9 a.m. rolls around and it's time to clear out the T and the start of the College kid’s heat. Gun goes off, blood starts pumpin. Took some serious work to settle myself down over the next 20 min until my 25-29 age group kicked off. So it's time to get in the water and being an ocean swimmer i was as warm as can be in the 66 deg lake. After the craze of the initial 200 meters or so i settled into the swim and swam a decent 27 min 1500. Had to run what seemed to be a mile to my spot in the T which was on the far end next to the bike exit. Fumbled around for a min or two and started up the hill. And what a hill it was. Between getting in my shoes, starting up my Forerunner 301 and peddling up the hill i had about a million things going. Exhaustion being one of them. But once that first big climb was over it was actually a really nice bike course. Not to say that i didn’t suck, cause i did. I’ve only got about 2 months of riding under my belt so there’s still a lot of work to be done. But all and all the bike was enjoyable...definitely my worst leg though. So after 23 miles of nice hills i get to bomb down the hill that killed me to begin with and start the run. Pretty smooth transition into the run with the exception of getting some Gatorade in my eye. Nice run too. First mile and a half or so is along the lake, pretty flat, perfect for getting your running legs. Then another hill. seemed like mile 2.5-4 was all up hill. But as i like to say, for even up hill is a downhill. And down i went, down the same hill that nearly killed me going up it on the bike and down it doing about 60 mph. Got my good old 6' tall legs going and passed a bunch of people on the last mile of the run and had a fun little kick in the last 100m or so as a couple of dudes had the nerve to try and overtake me. But i got the best of em. Managed a 7:30 ish pace for the run and an overall finished in a decent 2:52 which i was happy with for only 4 weeks of training. Cant wait till next year, cant wait until 2 weeks from now when I've got another race. Good luck to all, have fun and be safe this season