Ironman Kansas 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

When I first got in the water, instead of just jumping in, I stepped down into the rocke and injured my middle toe. I didn't realize how bad until later in the afternoon when I looked at it, I think it might be broken. It hurt a bit but nothing major enough to think about for very long as we were about 2 minutes from the start. This was the largest swim wave I had ever experienced so I knew it could be interesting. I worked my way towards the front knowing I would probably be in the top 10-20% for this group. The horn went off and there it was the mad dash towards that first bouy. About 100 yards into it the first swell hit us. I was thinking, is that just from all these guys swimming or does this lake have swells like that? A few moments later there was another one. I was thinking, is it that windy? Wow, this will be a fight for a lot of swimmers.

On the way out I did an O.K. job of sighting, not going TOO wide but I did go pretty wide once because there was a bunch of swimmers to my left and they all were going away from the bouy line. I was surprised of how quickly I caught up the the wave in front of us. So now I had sighting and steering to keep my mind busy. I tried to swim as long as I could with my head down but coming back to the beach I ended up swimming WAY right. I was able to say hello to the gal on the boat however.

When I got to the beach I looked at my watch, 35 minutes! I was hoping for low 30's, got over that quick as I ran to the bike. Turns out I was 8th in AG which made the swim by far the best leg of my race, too bad it accounted for only 10% of my total race time.

Due to the choppiness I must have drank a gallon of this nice tasty lake water. Hydration wasn't an issue heading to the bike.

I guess I need to stick my head up more often, keeping a more frequent eye on the bouys. Hopefully as I do more races my sighting will improve.

Given this was my first 70.3, having never done an Oly, I was not at all concerned about having a fast T1 time.

My T1 spot was right next to the bike exit so I had a nice bike-free run the entire length of T1. Unzipped and pulled off the wetsuit top, then had to sit down to get the wetsuit bottoms off. Dried off feet quickly before putting on bike shoes. Helmet on, short jog to bike mount line and my 4th ever 50+ mile bike ride was under way.

I guess practice getting the suit off quicker. Not really sure why it took over 4 minutes, my how time flies.

Got on the bike and away I went. In my mind I was telling myself not to go too hard in order to save energy for the run. As we headed out of the park a gal passed me and was about 5 or so feet in fromt of me. We were riding at just about the same pace and I didn't want to pass because that meant using up some of my run energy. So I eased off a bit but so did she. So there I was again at 5 feet. So then I move to the left of her by about 3-4 feet so that I wasn't directly behind here. I figured I wouldn't be accused of drafting, especially since I'm 6'-2" and she was about 5'-4" if not shorter. Sure enough I heard the motor bike come up and the woman told me to ease back or pass. "Sure thing, thank you" I said as I eased off, and so did the gal in front of me again. So when we hit a hill I decided to pick it up a notch and get on down the road to avoid any further accusations.

That was the highlight of my ride, pretty uneventful. I did see a guy roadise fixing a tire about a half-mile from the first turnaround. About 20 or so yards in front of him another rider was riding slow looking back towards him. After the turnaround the guy that was slowing down was helping him with his tire. Pretty damn good aportsmanship going on there. A bunch of pro riders came my way heading up to the turnaround but I couldn't tell if one of them was Chrissie. I didn't see here before the race so wasn't sure what color she was wearing. About 15-20 minutes after that I heard a woman shout "Drafting! drafting! " as a group of riders passed going the other way. Year sure, motorcycle gal was nowhere in sight to catch the real drafters. Those riders were pretty bunched together so maybe she had a legit claim. I just laoughed and kept on peddlin'

For me the really cool part was using my new aero-bar mounted hydration system. I had a bottle on the frame but never used it. I pre-filled the aero bottle with a 50/50 mixture of gatorade and water. At the first water station I asked for water. It was nice to simply stick the bottle into the top of the aero unit and squeeze the contents of the water bottle into it. The next aid station I asked for the sports drink instead and switched between the two for the ride. The aid stations were long enough to where the bottle they handed me was empty before I passed the last person. No littering for this guy! Yes, I'm a newbie and Yes this was my firsr time using the aero bottle.

I felt like I wasn't going too hard but given my bonk on the run I guess if I were to do the bike over again, I would go out a little easier. If I had used the Garmin I supposed I would have known my average speed up to that pointa

As I stated before, I wasn't too concerned with transition times. Racked to bike, sat down, dried the feet off, put socks & shoes on, spun race belt so number was correctily displayed in front per the athletes guide and began my nice little stroll through the campgrounds, yeah I could have spun the race belt around WHILE running but I didn't.

O.K. next time I'll trim some time off T1 since I'm no longer a 70.3 virgin. The pro's did it in 40 seconds so lots of room for improvement. How'd they do that?

Boy I was glad to get off the bike, my A$$ had had enough. Came out of T2 at what I thought was a nice easy pace. I felt like I was running 8:30 pace but I didn't have the Garmin so wasn't really sure. After about 2 miles I felt cramping on both legs, same spot, front of legs just above knees. I was thinking "please go away I've got 11 more miles!". At the next aid station they had ice so from there on I carried a cup of ice between each aid station, maintaining a constant hydration in small doses. The two cramps went away but ability to stay at my original pace started to fade. There's a hill that starts at about mile 2.5 and goes for about a mile. I was feeling pretty heavy going up that hill, especially knowing I would be going up it a second time at around mile 11. My pace was good for the first 8 miles, about 8:15/mile. But after that I hit a wall. Not sure where but going up that hill the second time really took its toll. After the big hill I headed back into the campround area, looked at my watch and thought to myself "I can walk the rest of the way and still beat 5:45". For a brief moment I thought about it but told myself "not yet". Then a minute later, my two friendly cramps returned. Both legs, just above the knees, this time with a vengeance.

At that point I was "running" so slow that walking wouldn't be that much slower. I thought to myself "I can easily walk over 4 miles/hour which is a 15 min./mile pace". So I conveniently started walking right next to this portly woman in her late 20's. "Tough Run" I said to her. She smiled while nodding in agreement. I told her she was doing great and looked forward to seeing her cross the finish as I increased my fast-walk to a super-fast walk :)

Finally got to mile 12 and thought about trying to run the entire last mile point one but my legs were saying NOOOOOO! So I walked approximately another half mile and ran the last half mile, had to make sure I looked strong coming home with my daughter and friends looking on. As I came towards the yellow brick finish I could hear my name being announced, felt pretty cool and finally, a fantastic end to my first 70.3, there was Chrissie simply being the rockstar embassador of this sport she is, waiting to present me with my finishers medal. I had a brief conversation with her two nights before at the Blazeman dinner so seeing her a second time was a real treat. At the time I didn't know how she finished but my assumption was that she won. I asked her how she did, she said "good" so I figured she won. I gave her a hug and for the life of me can't remember exactly what I said after that! Something to the effect of wishing her luck in her next race.

Pace myself better. Split times show my first 2.5 miles at just over 8 mm pace and around 8:18 over the next 5.25 miles. I'm wondering if I had gone out at say 8:30 if I could have held onto that pace and not had to walk. But realistically I'll do better next time because I'll have proper training (really follow a plan, that's a novel idea). Looking at my run logs over the last 2 months it is no suprise that it took over 2 hours to complete this run. Overall fitness and endurance is not where it should be to do much better at this distance.

I looked for my daughter for 20 minutes, was getting a little concerned. Finally I saw her walking towards the finish line. She loves dogs, got a little distracted. Went to get my transition bags and bike, walked by the massage area, BIG line, daughter was hungry, long walk back to car, decided to head home, stopping for food on the way.


Insuffient Training. The volumes and frequency need to be taken up a notch or two. My "plan" was to run the April marathon thus giving me a much better run base heading into this HIM distance. Had I gotten in the proper training my long run abilities might have been present during this race. But I am so glad I did this race, I have a much better handle on what my fitness level needs to be to have a good run at this distance.


This is a great race, much much larger than my previous triathlons. Organizationally it was top-notch although I have no other 70.3 or larger event to compare it to. There were plenty of volunteers and the course is fantastic. A lot of spectators lining the path through the campgrounds. Makes a big difference, especially for those who had family and friends in there. Wow, what a great job Ryan Robinson and crew did. Will definitely do next year and will probably ask some family and friends to come visit so they can camp out and cheer everyone on