New Jersey Devilman Half Iron Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Found myself a towards the front and middle/outside due to short time between waves. Pretty much got in sloshed out and the start happened. Pretty crowded and a good bit of bumping and banging but nothing too carried away. Went outside on purpose and just diamonded each leg to stay out of the mosh pit and navigate off the hats to the inside. Navigation was great hit each buoy close and stayed out of the way. The sprint have 2 waves and started about 2 minutes ahead of us and the other HIM wave started 2 minutes after so the first loop was a mess as it was a large wave and we caught the slower swimmers from the sprint waves(only had 1 loop) and had the faster swimmers from the last wave running over us. After the first loop, it calmed down quite a bit and I found a nice rhythm but my groin bothered me a bit.

Not much did swim at all in April, so other that the obvious swim more, it was a good smooth open water swim!

The timing mat out of T1 wasn't working so official times for the bike leg included T1 and bike leg so time is an estimate. Peeled my suit half way off, and found my rack OK but got my butt kicked by my wetsuit trying to peel it off my feet. After that rest went smoothly except forgot tospray on sunscreen and fasten my right bike shoe. Noticed the bike shoe after I clipped in and started roling so had to stop and clip out and take care out it before i got going.

Practice transitions, was slow and still forgot some stuff.

Ranking includes T1 and bike leg. After I fixed by bike shoe and clipped back in I check the time and saw 8:52. Held my breath and shifted to the big rind (worked first try), and started cruising in 12th. Top leg was into the wind. Drank on every 15 munites and grabbed a gel on 15s and 45s and took 3 electrolye tabs at halfway. Got going after letting a few speeders go by and started a back and forth with a lady and 58 year old guy. I would pass on the inclines, she would pass on the decent, and he would immediately pass whenever I had the nerve to pass him. After a whle they both pulled away for a while on the bottom leg, then I found a good rhythem and reeled the old guy in went back and forth twice then left him for good. Kept going to catch the lady who said something about her foot being frozen. I started working froward passing a few more riders, the second loop was pretty good, I did almost al the passing. 5 people passed me and 4 of them I had passed while they were stopped at the side of the road for potty breaks or flats. I ran down an Army Tri Guy after reeeling him in for most of the second loop, but right at the end i got a surprise as the lady I had been going back and forth with was suddenly on my wheel and passed my right at the end (She DNFed, was having issues with her feet and didn't run). Good bike the wind really slowed down the times (afterwards heard several folks saying they were doing 14 MPH going downhill into the wind). But did a god job pacing even splits 1:29 and 1:30.

Nothing. It wasn't a Hammerfest on the bike due to the fact it wasn't an A race and the wind. Need to work with the windy condition more to be ready for Kona but I'm getting better. Good ride and I was moving forward after first 5 or so miles on.

Nice smooth relaxed transition. Sprayed on sunscreen, got the last few electrolytes, and emptyed the tri suit on garbage and grabed 3 more gel packs. Good transition. Decided to skip the hat ince a storm was blowing in.

Was good.

Great run overall, 12 minute faster than last year and made my PR off this leg. This was my focus for the race. I started out easy for the first two miles and let my legs come in. The Army guy i pasted on the bike passed me back in the first mile and opened up a nice sized gap. After a few more people passed me I slowly started to pick up the effort and stuck with that group. At mile 3 i passed most of that group back and started easing away. After the first turnaround, another Army triathete and her buddy passed me (cruising) so I tried to easy up the pace and hold about 10-15 feet back of them, at 6 miles they stopped at the water stop and I passed them and upped the pace a bit more and resolved to keep them behind me. Listened to them talking about finishing off a race, so I tried to demonstrate that and upped the pace again and dropped them. Had a guy on a bike ride up and encourage me (even though I was feeling really good) and that helped. I could see i was closing on the other Army guy and the another guy who passed me earlier, I got them just before mile 9, and powered on by. It started raining at about mile 11 and the wind gusted. Had one guy pass my in that mile(had a 1:47 slipt) and two others who I had recently passed passed me back and we held that order to the finish line. The guy on the bike encouraged me again at the end to kick it in. Soon we rounded the corner and hit the park and finsish line. Felt great!!

Not much. Lost a bit on concertration from mile 10 to 11.5 due to the weather, thinking if I did Broad street I'd be done by now, etc, but come on I improved by over 12 minutes.

Gradded a couple sandwichs, chips, and water. Went to transition changed to a dry shirt and gather up my stuff and brought it back to the car. Loaded up, did a towel change and then it started raining again so I headed home.


Prep race for Eagleman so didn't push the bike and the wind sucked but it was a 9 min HIM PR overall and a 12 min HIM run PR. Top half in my age group too, good day!!


Piranha it starting to let me down. They are timing there own races so you have to wait a couple days and then they have the T1 mess up and don't break out age groups, etc. Lin-Mark did a much better job. The swim was better but still needs some work. Don't see why they only had 4 waves in 6 minutes for 2 race and a total of 469 swimmers. More waves and space them out more so it isn't a demolision derby. The bike and run were great but a few intersections on the bike scared the C**p out of my cause there was no traffic control to be seen. Didn' find the race to be worth the $170 I paid. That and change the date so its not heads up against the Broad Street Run.