Door County Triathlon - Half Iron Course - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Good swim in the big lake. Although it's a very large cold body of water that can be pretty rough at times, we had pretty good conditions with minimal wind, so I would consider it calm by Lake Michigan standards. However, there were still decent rollers/swells causing you to modify your stroke a bit so not to come crashing down into a wave. It was a lot of up and down through the rollers, but nothing too unmanageable unless you easily get sea sick.

I sighted well keeping fairly close to the buoys the whole swim. Being in the final wave of the day with all my fellow old guys (45-49), I knew there wouldn't be too much contact or craziness and I was correct. Everyone seemed respectable and there was only minimal contact and positioning at the start. Hats off to the old fellas....we rule!

Nothing other than swim faster. I think I could/should have swam this a bit faster, but no harm done and I am happy with the time.

My transition spot was the first rack on the left out of the water and was the furthest possible to the bike out meaning I had to run halfway across the globe in my bike shoes to get to the mounting line. I am surprised and happy my T1 time was as fast as 1:36 considering the location. I had budgeted up to 3 minutes knowing how clumsy I am running in bike shoes.

I utilized the strippers but we both struggled for what seemed like eternity getting the suit off my left arm. My ginormous Garmin 910xt sits pretty high on my wrist. Because I also have the quick release mount on the device it is a tad taller. We wrestled with it for a while and I learned a valuable lesson for future races that I can eliminate this problem by simply popping off the watch and holding it in my hand while taking off the suit.

It had rained from 8am until about the time my wave started the swim at 8:43, so the bike & gear was wet in transition and the roads were also wet. Although wet, it didn't seem to affect cornering or bike handling in any way which was nice. However, I do think early on there was a bit of a test phase of caution to make sure things weren't as slippery as they looked.

I have heard nothing but good things about the bike portion of this race and it did not disappoint in any way. The road conditions were perfect except for a very few small sections and the course was fast. My only complaint is that on two separate occasions there were cars driving on the side of the road where the cyclists were riding. It wouldn't have been so bad if the cars were going faster than the cyclists, but in both cases they were going so slow I was forced to slow down and sit directly behind them and wait for them to eventually speed up. I am not sure how cars got onto these roads, but it was certainly an issue of safety and definitely affected my pacing.

I felt like I was spot-on with my nutrition and hydration. Finished about 90% of my 3 hour bottle of Perp and also sprinkled in one gel and a couple small chunks of my Cliff bar and 2 salt tabs over the ride. I also drank about 2 bottles of water from my aero bottle and never ended up grabbing any electrolyte drink during the bike.

Not sure if I should have tried passing the two cars that were doing 15 mph in the bike lane, but I definitely thought about it.

So here's the thing. Having the very first rack at the swim out would certainly make it easy to find my bike location without even thinking about it....right? Wrong. In all my triathlons I have NEVER run down the wrong isle looking for my bike and have always found my rack quickly and efficiently in the past. This time for some reason, I ran down the second isle and started looking for my stuff and couldn't find it. Then I realized I had gone down the wrong isle and had to run around it to get back to my correct location.

It was the FIRST RACK out of the water! How could I mess that up? I did. Amazing. I guess it was too easy.

Once I finally got to my proper location, everything else went quickly and smoothly. Helmet off, bike shoes off, run shoes on, visor on, grabbed some salt tabs & a gel and off I went.

Go directly to my easy-to-find bike rack instead of the wrong one.

My goal was to run something around 2 hours and a perfect goal would have been to break the 2 hour mark. However, knowing the difficulty of this course I knew a sub 2 would be a challenge but I wanted the carrot out there.

The first 6 miles I felt very smooth and steady holding an avg pace of about 9:30 and it felt good and relatively easy which is exactly what I wanted. I went into the race figuring 9:30's on the front half and then try to negative split the back half. After reaching the halfway mark I was right on target. However, the hills had started to eat away at my quads and things were not getting easier. The second half of the the run I noticed my same effort level was getting me closer to 10 minute miles instead of the 9's that I wanted. I was thinking about pushing harder, but I really didn't want to blow up and end up having to walk a big chunk of the course. So now instead of pushing towards a goal time, I decided to run based on HR zone and RPE to insure I could finish without walking.

This strategy worked, but my pace was below desired level. From mile 7 through the finish everything was consistently right around 10 minute ppm with only mile 9 being an 11 min mile (mile 9 is the long climb up "The Bluff" in which I did walk a bit). So I ended up positively splitting my run by averaging 9:30's for the first half and right around 10 on the back half. I was just glad I never really had to walk any part of the run except the bluff.

I was throwing ice on my head at most aid stations and usually drinking either water or Gatorade as well. By about mile 10, my stomach had had enough and both liquids and nutrition seemed to upset it, so I knew if I just left it alone, I'd be fine....and I was. I finished the last 3 miles without eating or drinking, but my bigger problem was my quads on the downhills. They were pretty torn up from the hills and that final downhill surge to the finish line was definitely painful. You never think you'd want to walk a final downhill into a finish line at a race, but I saw several people doing it and, quite frankly, I felt like doing it myself. Each stride down to the finish line was painful, but somehow I managed to run a 9:30 final mile, which was shocking.

I know exactly what has to be done in training to improve my run but my body doesn't like the workload and heavy volume of running that is needed to dramatically improve. So I am content with these run results today.

After sprinting the last segment throught the downhill finisher chute, I was beat up and needed to sit down and collect myself for a few minutes. They gave me my medal and some bottled water and I relaxed for a few minutes before heading down to the finisher photo section. After the photo, I was happy to meet up with Colleen before soaking my lower body in the ice cold lake for about 5 minutes. That felt great.


Not enough volume or intensity in my run training leading up to this race, but other than that everything was perfect.


First I want to say this weekend was awesome and I had a great time spending it with my wife and so many friends, donkeys and training partners. The race venue, the Door County region of WI, the volunteers and all my peeps are what made the entire weekend special. And the race, well, it was a PR for me at this distance and an all around great time.