Congrats on your race day performance - especially given your lack of swim training and fighting it out in the wind. The later starters were at a significant disadvantage as the wind was picking up throughout the day and it appears the average time was 15 minutes slower in 2018 compared to 2017. You can have a look here - https://www.obstri.com/?compare=1 quite a useful tool. I sat next to a guy on the plane back to Cape Town who pulls all the data from results around the world and sorts it on that site. My training in the build up to race went well. I had two bouts of sickness, flu etc, but managed it very well. It's generally accepted that race day fitness comes from the 40 or so days prior and I had a good base coming from East London and Durban Ultra. My biggest week was 21 hours and this came 5 weeks out from race day. Leading in I hovered around 17-18 hours. I focused on quality rather than volume, as I feel this works best for me as I have studies to attend to. My approximate training split in terms of swim,bike and run in the build up was 20/50/30. All of my weekday rides were on the indoor trainer and I've found this invaluable from a safety and efficiency perspective. Hope that provides a little more insight. Feel free to ask any questions and I will try my best to answer them, cheers.
