Lets hear your report? I''m interested in doing this race in the near future as well, so it'd be interesting to get a first timer's view.

Here is the abridged version....

Arrived Friday afternoon on direct flight from Chicago. We stayed at the Hilton Caribe, which is the perfect location for the race as everything is right there. Flight landed a bit after 2PM and easily had enough time to pick up race packed at the Expo (@ HIlton), and walked over to Transition to pick up bike from Tri Bike Transport.

Saturday was the usual pre-race day. Short run with some drills to loosen up. Short ride to make sure the bike was working and opened up the legs a bit and did an easy swim. Not a ton of places to bike but I found a bike lane that I was able to spin out the legs, etc... Mandatory bike check in on Saturday PM. The Transition is inside an older outdoor soccer stadium and they had it all arranged on the track itself so it was super easy to find your number as compared to the usual transition of tons of rows, etc... Racked my bike on Saturday night making sure to let air out of my tires as it was getting quite warm. They offered 4 race talks, 2 in English, 2 in Spanish on Saturday as well in one of the meeting rooms at the Hilton.

Sunday AM---Transition opens at 4:30 and closes at 6AM. I walked to transition from hotel around 5AM, less than a 5 minute walk. Put air in tires, set up transition and went back to hotel. The layout is, such that when you leave transition to walk to the swim start which is about 10 minutes away, you go right by the Hilton so it made it very relaxing to go back to hotel, have a bite to eat, use the bathroom and just chill. It was such a relaxing race morning that I loved it. My swim wave was a bit later 7:20, so I stayed at the hotel till about 6:45 and made my way over the the swim start. The swim is in a lagoon and there is a beach on the opposite side of the bridge that I was able to get a nice warm up in.

Swim- Obviously a wave start, very smooth start process. Good swim, you swim out a bit, make two right turns and swim right under a bridge and get out of the water right near the Hilton Caribe. The swim was no wetsuit and seemed to be pretty uneventful. It did get a bit congested at the end, but all in all a great swim. I have raced quite a bit and have only done two non-wetsuit swims and had a PR for the swim so I was happy.

T1--T1 is about a quarter mile long and you essentially run on the street. A lot of people leave shoes at the swim exit to slip on to run to transition. It is not an "Official" transition at the swim exit so the race doesn't guarantee your shoes will be there when you exit the water. I chose to do this and glad I did. I slipped on an older pair of running shoes and didn't even tie them and ran to T1. If I do it again, I will bring an older pair of Tri Running shoes to leave them there for a bit faster time.

Bike-Pretty straight-forward bike. You leave San Juan and bike out of town. You essentially go out 12 miles, keep going another 8 or so, turn around and come back to that 12 mile point and go back out again, then head all the way in. Pretty flat with some small climbs entering highways, etc... Wind seems un-predictable...It slowed me down pretty good at about mile 17 but other times I was going very strong. Seems like the aid stations were a bit more spread out than I would have liked. I missed one and was a bit worried I was in trouble since it was getting warm, it ended up being fine. Didn't see much drafting at all....Lots of Race officials on the course and they seemed to do a very good job.

T2-Uneventful

Run--HOT....I come from Wisconsin and the heat is what really did me in. In addition to the heat, the course is very hilly. I forget the elevation gain on the run but it is close to the elevation gain of the bike (56 miles) compared to 13 miles of the run. You leave T2 and run towards Old San Juan, at about mile 2 you take a sharp right and have a steep hill and then run along the ocean by some old forts, etc...very nice view but very hot and hilly....I typically can race ok in the heat if it is in the summer and I have been training in it but this was very hard to do as I went from training in 30 degrees to racing in high 80's. At one point, I could feel my skin burning like I never have....very hard to even explain.

Race was great....my only minor complaint and this is very minor as it didn't affect me anyways as I didn't have the race I wanted but there was a local Tri Club who was offering lots of outside assistance to just their runners. While it may not seem like a big deal, when it is HOT as HELL and people you are racing against are getting toweled off, given ice, give water between the long gap of aid stations, it was an unfair advantage for them. As I said, it wouldn't have made a difference to me in this race but if I was haivng a good race, this would have been a bigger deal to me.

Overall, a great place to race. I would highly recommend it. We stayed till Friday and were able to take in other sites in Puerto Rico and really enjoyed it.

I have to second this. Great race overall for all the reasons posted and more, but good god that heat. I have suffered through St. Croix in May and Kona in October and neither felt nearly as searingly awful as San Juan in March--I think for the simple reason, like MadisonMan says, that coming from cold climates (east coast for me) you haven't had any chance to train in even moderately warm weather. My heart rate was through the roof on the 'run', and it stayed elevated even walking. If you plan to do this race, either don't plan to do well or try to incorporate some sort of rigorous heat acclimation protocol into your training. I too have been in the "I do okay in the heat" crowd, but not this time. The people who did passably on the run seemed to come from Florida, Carribean, Central America, etc. YMMV

I think your comment on the PR Tri clubs is spot on. I have done this race 3 times and skipped it this year for a few reasons. Mostly it was my kids spring break and we wanted to go ski. But also due to the tri club safety issue. The past two years I have been bumped on the run by people riding mountain bikes in support of runners. It takes the fun away when you feel like groups get an unfair advantage. But in this case I think it goes farther to a safety issue. It is dangerous having all these people out on the course, and the race director clearly doesn't care. I'm sure it boosts their local numbers, but it is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt. It is a great race, fast bike and a challenging run.

This will definitely suck for me. It is still full blown winter up here in Nome, AK. I'd have a real tough time if it's hot down there. Then again, my only goal for any race is "to survive".

Had a friend who did it a few years back, his tri suit was not UV proof, and TO THIS DAY he has a permanent tan...of his tri top. Looks like a bra so it's funny as shit, but he has skin peel and blister, and he didn't leave his hotel room for the entire "vacation week" after it was so bad. His experience is one of the reasons I haven't went yet...

This was my main complaint when I did this race two years ago too. Outside assistance on the run for the locals was blatant. The worst was they had bikers taking bags of ice out on the out/back section of the fort along the waterfront. No room for that action! Some DSQ's would end this behavior and I think WTC should get involved.

My bike experience was a bit different too. Some pretty blatant drafting. Having the 70.3 WC in Mt Tremblant that year may have added to this as those slots were more coveted than Vegas or the longer travel options require since then.

I came direct from AK and the heat was destructive! We even got lucky with some drifting cloud cover and it was still brutal!

Bump for an update on if anyone knows the date for 2017

What are the road surface conditions on the bike course - mostly smooth or rough and beat up?

Run 25's if you have them

Roads are ok but in parts really crappy and I ended up taking several different lines looking for smoother surface

Still pretty fast though - run is brutal if coming from the east coast

My edits to your earlier quote. This is right up there with the most beautiful runs in triathlon, right along the Caribbean mostly. But God it is hot. The sun bakes into the wall of the fort and then you get the sun on you one way and the heat reflecting radiating off the wall to boot. The hills on the run are ridiculous. This is a really tough race for North Americans or Europeans who have not acclimated to the heat yet since it is so early in the year.

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It is the mind itself which builds the body.
-Joseph Pilates

I don't recall the road conditions but usually for me, what that means is there was nothing significant about them....If they were bad, I would have remembered

I did it in 2015 and the roads were fine. A few rough spots if I recall heading out of T1. The roads were closed to traffic and I appreciated that. Man was it hot. Given the heat I think I had my best half ever there. Did it with a friend who is normally faster than me but he waited for me in T2 and we did the run together. I did St.Croix the next year though and suffered much more in the heat on the run maybe because the bike burnt me out.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Anyone have any experience staying anywhere other than the host hotel?

We stayed somewhere just off the main drag about a half mile from the start which is about a mile from transition at a small hotel cannot remember the name. There are lots of hotels along the water going back towards town that are reasonably close you could just put your race stuff in a backpack and bike to transition and set up easily and have a pleasant walk back. Just find one that has good reviews and pick. There is a fair bit of elevation gain on the run but it is almost all short steep hills that are probably just as easily walked up as trying to run unless you are trying to win your age group or something like that.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot