Troika Half Iron Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Sighting was a huge issue since my goggles fogged up 9 min. into swim. I literally could not see the bouy's, only the mass of bodies splashing around. I made a huge banana shape getting away from the feild and foun myself at least 50 yards off course at one point. On the way back, my goggles de fogged, and I had sight on the way in. This helped, but I could not figure out how to swim near the feild or the bouy's, and was still way outside the course. However, my best ows in training was 52 min, so I was pleasantly surprised with the 46 minute finish.

brave the mass of people next time, try to draft, and stay on course. I probably added 200 yards swimming off course. Also, wear goggles that do not fog over. Relax more mentaly and have fun.

Suit Come Off Left Heel! I could see what needed to happen, but it just took longer than needed to. Pretty friggin happy to be done swimming at this point.

Have an automatic routine to fall back on in the excitement of the moment. I did pretty good considering, but more experience racing will help.

I was so excited to get out of the water that I inadvertanly threw the plan out when I got on the bike. I went out hard and kept it up pretty much the hole way. I trained longer runs of the course at 16-17 mph training rides, but had a 19 mph avg. pretty much the whole way. I threw my chain on one small hill trying to get cute with my gear changes, but had it back on in about a minute. Glad that it had happened in training before. I loved this course, and it was good this is a local tri for me. I live about 3 miles from one part of this course, so I trained a lot on this course for this race and new it well.


Choose different solid for bike other than home made "fish chomps". They kind of got stuck in the back of throat in the nasal cavity, and I made embarrasing hacking coughs several times trying to hack them up. EWWWW.

You hand bike to volunteer at this event, and they hand you your transition bag.

Nothing for this event

This is where it got interesting. I tried to keep an 8:00 mile from the get go. The first mile, a guy passed me right out going fast. I caught up with him at the mile 2 aid station, and we ran together for the next 3 miles. I stopped at each aid station and put ice in cap and tri suit to keep cool. It get's quit humid along the river. This is the same course as the marathon I have run for 3 years, so I was very familiar with it.
at avout mile 7, I started to slow and get fatigued. I tried hard to keep pace up, but the ice baths at the aid stations started taking a little longer. I was struggling with pace at miles 10 and 11 and then picked it up going into the finish.

Train more on the run going into event. I trained for a marathon in May of this year, and then spent most of June and July focussed on bike training. Next time around, no marathon, so I can have a much better HIM training plan.

Hung out with family, and caught up with other competitors. Good times. Ate food and drank Gatoraid.


First triathlon. I learned a lot that will help me improve on my next HIM. Also, I feel like with the next training program just being about HIM and not a marathon, I will be much better at the swim and run, and improved on the bike too.


The event is smaller, 100 participants, so 3 port o potty's may not be a huge issue, but the lack of them at the start was frustrating.
This event was well supported, plenty of aid stations, and ice, water, heed, gels.