ok dipsh!ts, you can't compare times from course to course. Lance's race in St. Croix was on a flatter RUN course, but a much hillier BIKE course. You might look at his 2:22 bike at St. Croix through the lens of his 2:01 yesterday and say he had a huge breakthrough. When in fact, the 2:22 at St. Croix is superior to the FL 70.3 race. The florida course was not flat by any stretch, but St. Croix has a hill named The Beast that many racers, pro's even, bring different bike gearing to climb. There is nothing remotely close to that in FL.
To Fools: unless Lance turned on his watch (actually "power on") coming out of T2, that watch has already made a satellite connection. Once you hit Lap, you're on to the next leg and your watch continues the same satellite connection.
The course was a bit short today, but not more than a tenth of a mile. I was getting to the mile markers on the course and then my Garmin would ding 150-200m later, but it at least stayed consistent. The first mile was flat for 1/3, then you get up and down two large hills right away. This was made worse by a couple things: 1) no shade at all on exposed county roads 2) we were in one lane, and traffic was backed up next to us in the next lane, breathing their exhaust into the racing lane, and 3) there was a gap in aid stations of about 1.25 miles, so the whole time you were going up and down hills, you better have planned on not getting water or ice dumped.
Lance's wave started at 6:30am, so he had decent temps until about half way through the half marathon (decent meaning mid 80's). my wave went off 1:10 later at 7:40 and we got off the bike in the upper 80's and finished at 92-93 degrees. I feel bad for the folks that were out there for 6 hours and finished at 1pm. that was a special kind of hell. especially since it was a 3 loop run, and you have to look at the finish line as you head out on each loop.