Square Lake Triathlon - Half Iron Distance - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

First of all, this swim MUST be short. I'm a strong swimmer and have a competitive background, but that pace just ain't right.

That being said, this swim was pretty good. Kind of unremarkable. I just tried to keep my form clean. My sighting was terrrrible on the first loop- I was all over the place, so I took some time on the second loop to pop up more often and check where I was at.

I felt pretty good and got into a nice rhythm after the first 500 yards or so. Didn't really pay attention to who was around me b/c there were too many different waves to really keep track of my placement.

My wetsuit really rubbed the shit out of my neck, which it's never done before. Of course this is the longesst race I've worn it in, so that probably has something to do with it. As I sit here typing this RR, I've got a nasty raw spot on the back of my neck that looks like a cross between a hickey and a curling iron burn. Next time I'll remember to lube up my neck, yowch!

Neck lubing for sure. Sighting needed work. Otherwise, a good swim.

We had to run across the beach and up those wooden stairs to transition. At first I was running up the stairs but then I thought "WTF am I running for?" So I walked up them at a nice clip.

I had to decide what to wear for the bike and chose a long sleeved underamour shirt. Opted out of gloves, which was a bad choice because my ahdns were FREEZING the whole ride.

Took time to put socks on, aet some shot bloks, drank some water, then I was off. Scott was right there yelling encouragement (I'm sure I looked like I was out on a Sunday stroll, haha) and said he'd have new bottles ready for me when I came around for the second loop.

Mehhh, obviously I could have gotten out of transition a lot faster, but I wasn't in any hurry. If I was trying to be competitive I wouldn't have daudled.

my strategy on the bike was to just go out and enjoy the ride. I had been on the course a few times and knew what to expect, so I just settled into what felt comfortable.

The first lap I was freezing! It was cloudy and windy and I wasn't wearing enough clothing. Besides that, I had a good first lap. I had a bottle of gu20 and a bottle of water and I alternated between them every ten minutes or so. Quite a few men passed me but I didn't let them tempt me out of my own pace.

About 12 miles in I had to pee really badly but didn't want to stop. So I tried peeing on my bike. It was NOT satisfying in the least. Plus the half bottle of water I dumped on my lap afterwards made me cold again so I decided the next time I had to go I would just stop.

Bag of sport beans at the 16 mile mark.

It seemed like it took a looong time to go around the first loop. I didn't really enjoy myself that much, to be honest. I was cold and just not feeling too enthused about riding. My legs felt fine, but I just wanted the bike to be OVER. Finally, I came up on the turn to start the second loop. Scott was on his mountain bike ready to do an on-bike hand up. I threw my two bottles off to the side of the road and he gave me fresh bottles of the same mix. It was a nice pick me up to see him and to have everyone around cheering and stuff. I needed that so I wouldn't be thinking about how I wished I just wasn't on my bike.

Scott started to ride with me to ask how I was doing and if I needed anything else. He stayed on the opposite side of the road so as not to get in the way of the race. I yelled that I was fine, just cold. We chatted for a bit, he said I looked nice and strong, then I got back down into aero and tried to get into a groove.

After a few miles I picked my head back up and saw that Scott was still riding with me! I yelled something about whether he was going to do the whole loop and he said "If you want!" Yeah riiiiiight, he totally had planned to do the whole thing anyway. It was nice to have him riding with me but for a split second I thought "jesus christ, here I am in a RACE on a ROAD BIKE and he can still keep up with me." Haha. But it was a fleeting thought and actually the company made a big difference because it was a subtle distraction from the fact that I was in a half ironman... it felt more like we were just out on a ride.

With 15 miles to go, I started to have to pee reeeally bad. I couldn't find a good spot on the side of the road, so I kept holding it. And holding it. And holding it. Finally I thought I was going to burst, so I rode to the other side of the road and jumped off my bike. Soctt was coming up from behind and said "what's wrong? what do you need?" and I yelled "I need to PEEEEEE!" Hahaha. I got as far away from the road as I could and just yanked my shorts down. Man, was that a refreshing pee. It seemed like it was about 5 minutes long, too. I must have mooned quite a few people when I was done b/c I had a hard time getting my shorts back up and my bare ass was just hanging out for awhile. Haha.

As I ran up the side of the road to grab my bike and getting moving again, a woman flew by and I thought "damn it!" and hurried to get back on my bike and on the right side of the road. I got up to speed again and caught up to Scott who yelled at me to go catch that woman. That got my competitive juices flowing and I had a renewed sense of vigor for the ride.

My legs were feeling pretty good, but every so often I would feel a slight pulling sensation in my groin. I've never felt that before on my bike, but it wasn't enough to really bother me.

The things that hurt the most on this ride were my feet b/c they were like fricken ice blocks.

The last couple miles I tried to get my head into 1/2 marathon mode. By then I was thinking, "wow, only 2 hours to go and I'll be done!" At that point it seemed like the event was going by really quickly and I couldn't believe I was going to be running already.

Perhaps pee on my bike instead of stopping to save time... but I wasn't really going for a PR or anything so I think this ride was pretty good.

In transition I saw the woman that had passed me on the bike. She was next to antoher woman and both looked like they were taking their sweet ass time. So I tried to hurry up and get out of there before them. I tore open another bag of shot bloks, ate 3 of them, then stuffed the rest into my jersey to save for the run. I had 2 gus on my race belt in case I needed those, too. I took off my long sleeves b/c by then it was pretty sunny and a sleeveless jersey was perfect.

Getting my shoes on was kind of difficult b/c my feet were numb from the cold. I grabbed my ipod, walked while I got it set up, then ran out of transition and was on my way.

I'm sure I could have been faster but, theme of the day, I was just trying to have fun and wasn't too concerned with time. Although I did hurry up to beat those women out of transition. See ya, suckaaaaaas!

My feet felt awful the first couple miles as the blood got circulating again. My legs, however, felt great. I started off strong and felt really good. It was like I had just started off on a Sunday jog! The first couple miles I was right around an 8 min pace, and I had to really tell myself to slow down because I knew that I had some climbing to do.

There were water stations every mile and I stopped to walk through them and drank about half of a cup at each one.

The sun was out, I was feeling good, and really just had a great time on the run. I was passing people left and right. Not one person passed me the first 12 miles, I must have passed a good 25 people.

Because it was an out and back, I was able to see who was ahead of me. The leading female was really moving! I gave her a "you go girl!" shout and she did a fist pump in respone. She passed me at mile 3 or 4, and was waaay out ahead of the #2 woman. I kept myself entertained by counting the women ahead of me. One guy with this loooong curly hair in a ponytail and aqua green onesy I totally mistook for a woman until he was right up next to me and I saw he had an adam's apple. Hahaha.

By the time I approached the turn around I had to pay attention to my cadence to keep the pace up. I still felt good, but it took some effort to keep things around an 8:30 pace. The race still felt like it was going by so quickly. Only a 10K to go and I'm done? Whaaat?

I was thinking how lucky I was that I didn't have to go #2 when I suddenly realized that I did in fact have to go. I was going back and forth with myself about whether it was something I could ignore or if I'd have to stop. With 5 miles to go I passed by a state park entrance that I knew had a bathroom (there were none one the course and no good roadside options for going without being TOTALLY obvious). So I decided to run across the street and use the bathroom. That added quite a bit of time b/c I had to run to the end of the parking lot, but it was worth it. I felt SO much better afterwards, and headed back onto the course feeling good.

Passing a bunch of people again that I had already passed was kind of frustrating because it made me realize how much time I lost. But at least there were no women who passed me while I was in the bathroom.

Continued with the walk-through water stops plan and had 1/2 a gel with 4 miles to go. I couldn't believe the race was almost done!

With 3 miles to go Scott came barreling down the road on his bike. He shouted some encouragement and stuff, told me he had my bike all put away and my stuff waiting for me at the finish line. How nice, it was great to see him, yada yada, but then all I could think was "he's not actually going to ride the whole way in with me is he?" I was about to tell him to get lost when he said "see you at the finish!" and rode off. Good timing.

With about a mile to go, a woman came up on me. I quickly looked at her calf and saw she was 31. I said "I'd chase you down but you're not in my age group so I'll let you go!" She laughed and said she'd been trying to catch me for ages. She started to pull away on a hill and I didn't feel even the slightest desire to stay with her. My pace was just fine with me. Then a man caught up to me and pulled away. So I thought, "f*ck I better pick it up."

As we came into the finishing area I thought about how remarkably good I felt. There was one final hill up to the finish line and that was a bitch, but I finished feeling good and with a big smile on my face. As I was coming up the hill, Randy said "and here comes #711! That's Bridget Dyer, ladies and gentlemen!" And ta daaaa, I was done! Not more than 5 seconds later, this totally ripped woman I had seen ahwile back came crashing down the finish line. Whoa! Good thing she didn't catch me right at the finish, that would have sucked.

The 4 of us who all finished around the same time shook hands and gave congratulations. The woman that had passed me came over and said "thanks so much for pushing me to go harder, I had been working the last 5 miles to catch you!" Turns out she recognized me from some races earlier this year and she never could beat me before. It was kind of cool to hear that I was someone's rabbit. And I didn't mind in the least that she caught me. Haha I wonder, if this had been a big race for me, if I would have felt like punching her in the face if she said that.

Figure out how not to poop.

I went over and got a big congratulations smooch and hug from my one man race crew. We sat down on the hill by the finish and watched people come in while I stretched out a bit. The clock was under 6 when I finished... I hadn't done the math but knew I came in waaaay faster than I thought I would. I didn't even THINK I'd be under 5:30. I meandered over to the results board and couldn't believe it. Wahooooo! And hardware to boot! I was so stoked. I was jumping around like I had just woken up and had a giant coffee. After my first HIM I could barely hobble back to the car. It was amazing how different this race felt, both during and afterwards.

I grabbed some stuff from my car and headed down to the beach to jump in the lake before putting on clean clothes. Walking down the hill is when I felt it in my legs. Oooh yeah, I DID just do a half ironman. Yowch.

Anyway, I got all cleaned up and into nice clean dry clothes, then went back to the finishing area and got my medal. We sat there for awhile watching people come in. I just couldn't believe I did so well. It makes me wonder how much faster I could have gone if I took it a little more seriously. Next year...


Making this a B race and treating it as such.


The vibe of the event was fun-- if I had been a newbie I wouldn't have been intimidated at all. The course offers some good climbs, is jusssst challenging enough, and keeps you from getting bored. I had a great time and will definitely be doing it again next year.

excluding the elites...
5th female overall
2nd in AG