On the hilly 40km cycle course with 440 vertical metres of climbing, Francis opted to alter his gear to cope and while he did feel a tad uncomfortable he posted the fastest bike split of 59.07.
"Maybe the three weeks racing in a row is taking their toll, but I am pleased I spat out the fastest bike split. I rolled into second place with two boys hot on my heels, 1.30 down on one solo leader and local favorite Sean Bechtel.
"The pace was hot in the 10km run as I had a man up the road to drag in. The other two had the same idea.
"One cooked himself too soon, the other was none other than the infamous Csaba "Old Old Wooden Ship" Kuttor, three times Hungarian Olympic triathlon representative and long-time competitor on the ITU World Cup scene."
Kuttor ran down the local at the 4.5km mark and Francis 1km later.
"Csaba had 30 seconds on me at this stage, a distance he would hold on to until the line, we continued to move away from the rest of the field until we had both finished.
"I posted third fastest run of 35.01. Old Old Wooden Ship ran 34.19.
"The 37-year-old Hungarian beat me by 30 seconds posting 1h 56m 41s. I rolled in clocking 1h 57m 11s. Not a bad little result for a mongrel course like that," Francis said.
His next race is this coming weekend in Columbus, Ohio - another 5150 race.
"A shout out should go to my coach Shane Reed ... without him I would be in Wanganui freezing my buttocks off, probably stirring large vats of dog food."