Similar at the Cambridge Olympic distance for me. They let me enter and pay at registration at 6.00am or whatever time it was in the morning. Very nice of them.
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I wasn’t going to admit this but I turned up for a race on a Sunday morning 6:30 am for 7 am at the pool to reg and rack only realise it had taken place on the Saturday.
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When someone says ‘sir, you’ve destroyed the bed’,
that’s when you turn to the crowd and say
‘yeah, she was ready to go’
make a pistol with your fingers and blow. 
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If only I had thought of that 
I resorted to looking at the ground and making absolutely no eye contact with anyone
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A lot of athletes feel the allure to do longer races as soon as they start doing triathlon. Remember that it’s supposed to be fun, so add in some variety to your racing life: sprint and Olympic races, 5Ks and 10Ks, time trials, cyclocross. Variety keeps it fun and will keep you racing longer.
The biggest benefit is that if you build speed by racing shorter events, you can carry that over to long-distance racing, so you shouldn’t feel rushed to go long
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Went out for a ride today. Not being an idiot I check my computer had enough charge last night by switching it on. I may have left it on so it ran out of charge within 10 minutes of riding. 
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1st tri i did. Hammered the bike, spent the whole run bent double as I couldn’t stretch out. Still came in 4th.
Getting too pissed off by cheating as large peletons of riders form. London and IM UK were bad for this. Never any penalties given out as I check. Whats the point if you cheat?
Organisers cashing in with poorly organised events with big promises and entry fee that are in some cases plain dangerouse. One particular one springs to mind.
Not much else really. Check, check and check again. Run through what you are going to do many times and all is good.
Road cycling. I started at the back of a town centre crit race. The Next year I made absolutely sure I was at the front.
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the bane of our roles as TOs. we do give out drafting penalties but there are simply not enough resources to have eyes everywhere so a lot do get missed - athletes themselves need to take the blame as they know the rules yet still cheat, often colluding with others to form packs and keeping eyes out for draftbusters.
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The year I did London Tri it was a total draft fest. There was a “male sub 2.30” wave which meant about 200 guys of similar ability getting out of the water at roughly the same time. I got swallowed up in a huge peleton, maybe 50 riders. At that point in my head the race became draft legal so I’m afraid that’s what I did. Only time ever. It felt amazing though, the course was closed to traffic and flat and sheltered on a good road surface, we were barrelling along at 50kmh. Never done anything like that since.
No penalty. Finished in about 2:06, which is a lot faster than I ought to, helped massively by peleton. And I didn’t think any more if it until a week later when an engraved trophy arrived at my workplace. I had forgotten, but there was a race within a race sponsored by “GP magazine” and it turns out I was the least slow GP on the day.
So, a moral dilemma. Should I fess up? To my shame I kept schtum until now… this is my confession. But…
…the next month I entered a sprint race in the New Forest. Rode a 100% fair race and hardly saw another cyclist, certainly didn’t draft anyone. Yet found out at the end I had been DQd for drafting. Reckon a marshall misread some one else’s number, but there’s nothing you can do. So I took it on the chin as a sort of Karma for London, and have been perfectly behaved ever since.
The balance sheet stands equal 
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None of us here is a priest (as far as I know), so I hope you are not expecting absolution. Maybe @fatbuddha is the closest we have, so if he sees fit then you might be forgiven after suitable penance.
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Drafting confessions, eh?
Ad’H short from Lac du Verney to the bottom of the hill is an absolute train, great fun & you’d be mad not to jump on board 
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I managed to get a bit of one off @adam from the dual carriageway to the foot of the Struggle.
That’s it.
My bike legs are usually very lonely affairs 
All aboard 
Historically my swim has been so poor that I normally spend the bike overtaking throughout anyway
In Cascais the draft busters on the moto wagged their fingers a couple of times as I was spending a fair amount of time on the wrong side of the road undertaking small pelotons that had formed!
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Always had that problem myself, most people I could cycle with had long gone, but did get a bit of a slingshot past slower riders, especially in big fields.
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My swim has improved but I’ve always enjoyed that with the bike leg - it’s just quite fun powering past people. I can’t be arsed to back off I always have the mindset of dropping them. Would probably help my run if I stopped that
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The sub 2:30 london race is one of the races that sticks out. Loads of marshals too. I came out the swim well up then was overtaken by a huge peleton just before the turn point at big ben. I was fuming. Did the best 10k run of my life though, but i think the course must have been short.
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From Outlaw 2010-2012 and memory;
Out of the swim in an hour (top 50)
Rip through T1 in under three minutes and “overtake” some of the quicker swimmers that way.
Out onto the bike and there’s nobody around me for ages, like, I mean ages!
Passed a few people at Radcliffe (10km in)
Then a couple of people passed me (sub-5 hour bikers)
And that was it until the last lap.
Lonely days.
I did stop for a poo two years, so people may have passed me then
Still rode ~5:22 every year 
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An hour swim and sub 5:30 bike split at Outlaw must see you towards the front of the race though. Funny how you do get these pockets where it’s all lonely though!
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34th in 2010
14th in 2011
21st in 2012
2012 was my best/worst - some 50 year old steamed past me about 5km into the run, I thought “I’ll be seeing him again later 
”
Yeah, coming past me the other way, still steaming along.
If I’d have kept with him, I’d have had my f’ing sub-10 
That run is lonelyAF!
I recall leaving HPP, having showered and retrieved my bike, with people still going out onto the run 
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