My Re-Tri in Munich

Hey everybody!
I finished my second tri last weekend (the City-Triathlon in the Olympic Park/Munich). But since I hadn't tri-ed in 2 years it felt like my first again and I was unbelievably nervous.
My first one 2 years ago had been olympic distance and this one was a mini now, so I was even more nervous about the transitions.
The swim nearly killed me as I started out way too fast. I thought my lungs were gonna explode. But when I got out of the water and checked my time I was really surprised to have been way faster than in the work outs. I guess the adrenaline just had totally kicked in. The transition from swim to bike was just as horrable as last time: too high a pulse after the swim so that I just couldn't get my feet into those darn bike pants. On the bike I let my heart rate relax a bit but drank way too much (water-juice-mix), so that I had too much in my stomach afterwards and couldn't run as fast as I might have. This is probably due to me working out for longer distances in the training and 2 years ago when I was going for an olympic distance. On a mini you maybe don't dehydrate as much. Well I'll know better next time. When I finally found my running rhythm the race was nearly over. But overall I felt that I had raced at a higher level (heart-rate) than before and really given all.
Afterwards I looked up my time and rank, and I was really surprised to find out I came in 52nd of 150 women. I couldn't believe it since I had thought I would come in somewhere last. I tend to think of myself that I am such a looser before a race when I see all those "real athletes" with all their cool equipment (I borrow half of the stuff from all across my family/friends and dress in some old sports clothes). But I had never raced at such high intensity and with that much adrenaline.......
The weather was sunny and the Olympic park it just lovely. Also there were quite a few people watching and cheering since on the same day the German Triathlon League had started the new season there just before us "normals". I saw Lothar Leder, the first German guy to win the Ironman Hawaii and a star in German Tri there :-)
So the things I learned from this experience: on the swim don't start out too fast, so that your heart rate is not too high. Otherwise I am trembling and shaking too much to do a time-efficient transition. Then don't drink too much but enough on the bike. And you're always better than you think ;-)
As a gift for myself for staying under 1:45 h (I actually achieved 1:21 h) I promised myself to finally buy a tri suit, so that I wouldn't have to worry about those transitions that much anymore ;-) And I'm staying with it this time for sure and am planning to do a couple of more tris this year in the Munich area so that I wouldn't be that much nervous anymore everytime (but well, maybe that one will stay with me........ ;-)
Again thanks for all the motivation and good luck wishes that I had gotten from this forum beforehand.
NikNak