Steelhead Half-Ironman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The swim was slow... as I mentioned the the water was choppy and the sun was on my face the whole time. I had to literally stop and try to find the buoys. tried to have some landmarks, but I think i am just not a good navigator.... I knew my swim was going to be slow, but I never thought it was going to be that slow...

In the middle of the swim, I realize that I no longer had my watch... I left it in Lake michigan....so now I think... Great... I will have no idea how long it took me to do this swim. I assume that it was not going to be any longer than 36 min..... well it took 41... I did not find out until the end of the race and I was dissapointed.

Learn to breath in both direction to avoid the sun.... I also will consider to aquiring a slevless wetsuit.... for some reason i was dead tired at the end of the swim. I have swam faster and longer than 1.2 miles in open water and I have never felt that tired.. I think the sleeves of the wetsuit made me tired...

There was a very long run from the end of the swim to the transition area... I tried to run it, but I was dead tired and could not manage any run in the beach... I realize that It was going to be a looooong day. I finally made it to the transition area and my God.. my wetsuit was already dry and got stock on my heels... It took me several minutes to finally get rid of it... cosumed a shot of gel, some gatorade and put my glasses and my helmet and off I went.

secure my watch, practice wetsuit off and do it faster...

Ok... I felt great at the beginning of the bike... I found out that hills and I are not good friends but I really enjoyed the ride. there were some sections I was cruising at 30+ mph, but there were some hills that I barely made it to the top (less than 5 mph).... overall I think I did great...except for a fatal mistake.....
you see... I had mixed my nutrition cocktail and I was supposed to take a sip every 15 min..... and chase the sucker with water or gatorade. I drank a little too much and I ran out of water/gatorade... No problem a aid station was comming up soon... I saw the exchange bottle approaching so I grabbed and got ready for a bottle exchange.. the first one, i took and took a bottle from one of my cages and threw it away replacing it with a bottle of gatorade. Then I took another bottle and emptied in my aerobar bottle... I assumed aeropostion and kept on hammering. when I wanted to get my nutrition cocktail sip....well.... it was no longer on my cage.. I had replaced it with a bottle of gatorade back there... I seriusly consider going back.... but then I decided to tought it up.... I started to drink gatorade and in every aid station i would make sure I would get some Gu..... but this was not what I have trained with, I would find out that later.

I found out that not everybody is honest in this sport... saw bunch of people drafting... I pissed me off. I consider doing it myself, but who was I going to fool... It just made me upset to see whole pelotons passing me..... Oh well...

Make sure which bottle was which...
I enjoyed the ride... it was good... The scenery was good... and of course the pace was good..

Arrived in transition and I sat down, dried my feet and put socks on, (went sockless on the bike). Put my shoes on and took another shot of gel and took off for the run... I think I did a decent job in T2... did not feel rushed, just perfect.

nothing

Well.. I took off and I made my first mile in 8 min... I thought that would be a little bit too fast... so I slowed down and I made the second mile in about 9 min.... that was the pace i wanted so I settled at that pace and kept on running. I also realize that I had been drinking too much since my stomack felt like a canteen full of water. Not good.... For the first two aid stations I took gels, but I kept them on my hand... I could not eat them any more.... At mile 3 my stomach felt like it had enough and needed to make some room.... I had a horrible puking sensation.... I slowed down my pace and decided to walk a little to regroup.... then I just did what I knew it was comming... I found a tree, hugged and vomited and emptied my stomach. i attempt to run again... but two minutes later I was hugging another tree.... I approachead an aid station and got some water... i could not drink any gatorade or gu anymore.... I considerable slowed down and started a run (5 min) and walk (1 min).... I did this for a while and thought I was making good prgress.... I realize that the bottom of my feet were wet and that I would definitly was having blisters being developed... I thoughen it up and just kept on going. For the last 3 miles I suffered, my legs were ok... but I was sick to my stomach... I saw the finish line and just went for it... I crossed the finish line and all i care was to find a place were to puke some more.... he he...



I need to play with my nutrition more... I don't know if I would have kept my nutrition bottle would make a difference... I think i need to find a good formula for my nutrition that would include some solid fodds... Gatorade, the ironman cocktail and the GU are way tooo sweet...

Warm down... What is that?......


Nutrition.... I need to reconsider very seriously my nutrition....
Lack of training... I also blame my poor perfomance in the fact that when I fell off my bike three weeks before the race... I only managed one good run and one good bike...and that was it. I basicly had a 3 1/2 week taper... Darn....


Great race... I would definitly do it again... and definitly would advise people to do this one.