I was there and it was a great race! Clif's notes version of the race report below:

Finished with a 5:19, which based on the shortened downstream only swim, was a solidly mediocre performance for me (would have been around a 5:30-5:35 on a course with a legit swim).

Considering my general disdain for any real training since IMAZ, which has literally been 2 half ass swims, a decent amount of biking, and inconsistent running at best, I have no complaints as I got exactly what I earned. My bike split was much better than expected, and run time was blah, but about what I was expecting on a bum ankle and lack of miles.

Swim (18:52): We swam the river on Saturday when the flow was much greater (25,000 cfs vs 8,500 cfs on race day) and it still wasn't that bad swimming upstream (about 8 minutes to swim 400m upstream). Personally, I was disappointed about the shortened swim and really didn't think it was necessary, but it is was it is, you race the course you're given. Morning of, I made two big mistakes, 1- thinking that people would actually seed semi-accurately (which has been my experience at full ironmans with a rolling start), but with no signs to help corral people I should've known better and 2- I started a little further back (not much) so I could start with my sister since she was doing her first ever 70.3 and was crazy nervous. Well, not getting up front definitely affected my swim and I was fighting traffic the entire time. After all the reading I did about the swim there, I was really surprised that it was one of the most congested swims I've ever had in a 70.3, WAY more congestion than any of the Ironman rolling starts I've done. They really need those corral signs if they even remotely want people to seed accurately. I ran up on literally 15-18 people before even the first turn buoy. Granted, it's partially my own fault for started back a little, but there were lots of people I saw that had no business being in the water that early. Oh well, lesson learned.

T1 (4:07): Pretty long T2 run with a steep up hill, but nothing crazy. I take great pride in fast transitions, so this was embarrassingly slow for me. I was battling a mildly sprained ankle from the day before and it definitely affected my ability to run barefoot. Oh well.

Bike (2:37 at 21.4mph): Absolutely amazing bike course! I can't repeat enough how much I loved this bike course. Decent quality pavement for the majority of it, beautiful visuals out on the country roads, rolling hills that were surprisingly fast. Considering the elevation listed on the maps, I was really shocked by how fast this course was, I only had to drop into my small ring one time for 30 seconds at mile 26ish (one of the steepest climbs I've ever done, but luckily it's really short). Aid stations perfectly placed to allow me to only carry a single bottle all day. If you like to bike, this is a great course.

T2 (3:04): T1 was a little odd. Rookie mistake as I didn't realize the isle numbers were different, I was isle 2 coming in from swim and isle 3 coming in from bike, so I went down the wrong isle and of course because I had a center spot, had to backtrack to rack my bike. I was really not in good mood about that. Also, I forgot to change out my laces for elastic laces before leaving Houston and it felt like an eternity as I stood there tying my shoes. Is what it was, but still annoying.

Run (2:15): I knew coming in that I was kind of out of shape, and with the bum ankle, I figured I'd still give it a go and see what happened. I just told myself, worst case if the ankle bothered me, I'd just walk the run, but I refuse to get a DNF. Surprisingly, it held up pretty good and I was able to keep moving forward. My split definitely reflected my lack of miles this year as I went slower for this 13.1 than I did for either of my laps at IMAZ just 6 months ago. That said, I really enjoyed this run. Considering that you're always going up or down, it's a pretty nice run. There's one really bad hill that forced almost everyone to walk, but it was short. The rest of the hills were gentile enough that you could actually run them up and down. Decent crowd support and good aid stations. We got really lucky with the clouds, but I could see this course being brutal on a sunny day as there is very little tree cover, especially on the portion that is on the highway shoulder. Overall, not terribly disappointed in my run as it was about what I expected.

Overall: Crappy swim, great bike, decent run but overall really happy with my "race". I hit my nutrition spot on; had great energy all day, stomach never went sour and never got dehydrated. I highly recommend this race to anyone considering it and for those in Houston, it was a pretty easy drive. If you do go, definitely spring for the hotels downtown you can walk to everything.

Oh, and my sister (also an Aggie) that I referred to earlier....She had a great race! All her training rides had been in the 14.5-14.9 mph range yet she rode a 16.9 mph bike and then followed it with a solid run/walk 13.1 that was only a couple minutes off her 13.1 PR. We were projecting her around an 8 hr finish, and she came in at 6:57!