THere are a couple of threads already on it, but…
Yes, I did it. The race is a really difficult sprint.
The swim is the easiest part. The shorebreak can be just a little rough, but easy to get past. Straightforward rectangular pattern, but always longer than advertised, the very fastest do it in around 10 minutes. Running to T1 is where the race really gets tough. You have to run up a beach access ramp. It climbs about 150 feet and is quite steep.
The bike is 12 miles, 2 loops of rolling road. The lanes are pretty wide, which is great because there are a lot of people not adhering to the ‘stay to the right’ rule. It is up and down and hard to get a rhythym going. It’s right at the point where some stay seated the whole way and some get out of the saddle for the climbs. The downhills are just steep enough you can pedal through them - and you have to if you’re planning to place. You’ll go through most every gear with the variety of hills.
The thress mile run has the same rolling hills. It’s easy to start out fast, but then you hit the first climb and you find out how fatigued you really are. The first half is generally downhill, though and on nice wide bike path asphalt (but you know, what goes down, must come up!). The mid-point turn-around gives you a chance to see your position against your competitors and then turns down a dirt path to the beach. Here’s another chance to check your fatigue as you run in soft sand down to the berm and the harder packed wet sand. I think the beach segment is close to a mile long and seems longer as you try to stay low enough to stay on hard pack while avoiding waves. Every now and then there may be rocks to scramble over, but they don’t slow you down. The last half-mile, though is the crux of the whole race - another 150 ramp to climb back to the top of the bluffs. The worst is, the last 20 feet or so is the steepest. Once past that, it’s just one-third of a mile to the finish and it is slightly downhill.
Hope that details it enough for you.