Finally Taking Down HOT!

I'm super happy to have this win under my belt.  The HOT triathlon usually brings some hearty competition and this year was no different.  I came out of the water around third and by the time I was 100 yards out of transition, I was in second place.  I put in a ton of effort to catch the guy in first and did so about 20 minutes in.  At this point, I let off the gas a little and just kept a steady pace to keep my lead (but still putting distance on the people behind me).  As I got into transition, they had moved the mount line a little further out than normal so I crossed it and got yelled at.  I slammed on my brakes and kinda went over the front of the bike, but not crashing.  It ended up being somewhat graceful and nothing bad happened!  I had my best bike split to date of 56:55.  Now the next big goal is to break 55!  I felt good at the start of the run and about a mile into it, the guy who was in second caught up to about 15 seconds behind me and just sat there.  I slowly built my pace and with a mile left the guy dropped off.  I settled into a nice pace at that point to finish in first (by over 2 minutes!).  It was a good race, but I prefer the ones that end in a sprint across the finish line!