Whirlpool Steelhead 70.3 Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

This was mentally the best open water swim that I've done to date. I was pretty much able to jump in and go at it without any of the funny open water mind games that have plagued me in past events. It did take me a few minutes to find my rhythm and get my breathing squared away, but once I was settled in I was able to go into auto-pilot for the remainder of the swim.

Nothing. I felt like everything went very smoothly on this swim. The pace felt solid without pushing too hard.

HR was 140 coming out of the water. By the time that I made my way up the beach, through deep soft sand, my HR had jumped to 170. At that point I decided that I needed to walk the rest of way to transition to get my HR down.

I really need to work on transitions, especially T1. My times are always outrageous, but are typically as expected given the amount of attention I give them.

In hind site, I probably went out too hard on the bike. Whereas, I should have eased into my pace. However, the whole time out there I felt great. I watched my HR pretty closely as to not push too hard. I was able to stick my nutrition plan throughout. I did stop at the last water station for a pee break and to fill my water bottle.

Although, I felt good on the bike and didn't think I was pushing too hard, I should have backed off a bit to save some energy for the run.

Not too much to comment on for this transition. Basically in and out focusing on the run ahead.

This is where everything came crashing down. I was given a warning about a hill at the 1 mile mark and had decided that I would walk that hill, which I did. After resuming running at the top of the hill, I made it to the 2 mile mark before realizing that my HR was spiking. At that point I was starting to feel like I was running out of steam, plus I knew that I had get my HR down, so I decided to walk for a moment to get my pulse down. At that point my strategy was to simply run from water station to the next with short walking breaks to take water, GE, etc. However, at the 1st water station I drank some GE which didn't sit well at all. The next few miles were a complete struggle between keeping my HR down and keeping the gatorade down. At the 45 minute mark, with the nausea somewhat subsided, I took a shot of hammer gel, which didn't sit any better than the gatorade. At the point I decided that it had to be water or nothing for the remainder of the run. From the 2 mile marker to the 11 mile marker was a complete struggle with far too many walking breaks. At the 11 mile marker I was able to regain a bit of composure. At the bottom of the final hill, knowing that there was only about 1 mile left, I was able to let loose a bit. I saw a guy a little in front of me from my wave. After being passed by what felt like everybody on the entire course during the run, I decided that I was going to put at least one person from my wave behind me. So I set my sites on that guy and gave everything I had left from there on through the final stretch, where McFuzz was sitting up on the dunes and cheered me on to the finish.

Ease up on the bike and start out a bit slower on the run.

I drank a couple bottles of gatorade and wrapped a cold wet towel around my neck.


I think that pacing was my primary issue on this race. I felt wonderful during the swim and bike portions of this race. However, the run was one of the single most miserable things I ever put myself through.


I really enjoyed this race, with exception of the run which was my issue not the race's. I know that some people felt that it was over crowded or had other issues, but I thrived on the size of the field and liked having all of the athletes around throughout the course. I felt that the race was very well organized, especially given its size. The bike and run courses were well manned. The bike course did have a few rough areas of pavement, but overall wasn't any worse than what I train on, so no issues there.