I Bonked 

That's actually a technical term. It's basically like hitting a wall, and happens when you simply run out of energy. After going over the race on Sunday in my mind, that's what I think happened. My time was almost identical to this race last year, and as I recall what happened then, the entire race feels like a repeat. As I examine the times however, that's not exactly what happened.

My bike leg was a minute slower than last year, yet I felt stronger this year. My run felt much worse than last year, yet I was 2 minutes faster. My transitions were about the same after taking into account that the transition area was significantly larger due to the doubling of the number of racers. This year there were 1100 people, and I was in wave 9. I ended up having to navigate through quite a few slower people in earlier waves since they didn't bracket people by age groups (it was simply by order of registration).

I bonked on the run. The first half of the run (which was largely up hill) was horrible. I felt totally out of energy, and then recovered during the bottom half (after a hammer gel kicked in I think). My problem I think is that I don't eat enough before hand. I'm not a big breakfast eater, and in fact usually don't have the stomach for it due to post nasal drip issues. In fact the power bar that I had before hand was making me belch and giving me an upset stomach during the swim and start of the bike leg. So I think I'll be spending some time looking at good pre-race eating to see if there's something I can do that won't make me puke. I also need to change the timing of when I down a hammer gel so it kicks in sooner (more towards the end of the bike leg as opposed to the start of the run).

If you're interested, here are the full results of the race. I'll make pictures available when I get them.