Tawas Triathlon Festival - HIM - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The start was the toughest tri start ever!
There were 120 men doing the half iron distance, we all were headed for the buoy maybe 50 m from the beach, switching between running and swimming
This was the real washing machine experience, hitting, kicking, swimming over
Settled in after 200m or so
By that time I had lost many places but quickly started to pass people

This was also the first time that I drafted, it was great, obviously saved a lot of energy, but I realized that the guy was zig-zagging so I decided to go on my own
AFter about 500m, there was a group quite a distance ahead, and I was in front of a chase group. For the rest of the swim, it was either drafting or swimming side by side (read: hitting). Was pretty carzy given the distance!
After about three quarter, I felt tachycardia, had to slow down a little and had to decide whether I continue or stop to get my HR normalized again. Decided to go on and then normalize either in TA or on the bike

Probably be further in the front at the start. I was caught in the middle and that cost me time...

Included 300m from water to TA
I was mostly walking this because of the tachycardia
The actual transition was pretty quick, had a Hammer gel and some HEED

For the next season, I really need to start having the shoes on the bike, without that you can't really jump on or off the bike

Could not bring down HR even though I was barely moving in the beginning, so I decided to stop after around 2 miles. After about 2 min, I was good to go again. By that time, around 30 people had passed me.

Just when I got onto my bike, Steve (rottieguy) was going by and we rode shortly together. He wanted to pace himself and take it easy though so I took off.

There was not a lot happening, some usual passing back and forth. No obvious drafting;-)

Was trying to keep cadence at 80 and HR around 160, that worked great

On the hills I tried the tips from BT to try to keep power constant, or pressure on foot, makes you slow at the beginning of the hill, but you have to power on top of the hill to push harder. Definitely worked for me!

Around mile 35 my soft parts were yelling at me, was shifting back and forth from there on, but was okay

Did not really push the last 10 miles, but it was fortunately down hill

Nothing really

Short transition
Had my Garmin quick release arm band in transition, so I put it on while starting to run, that worked fine

As usual, had one Hammer gel plus a little bit of HEED

Nothing really

Here is where my race fell apart...
I felt awesome coming off the bike!
Rather than sticking to my target pace of 9:30 in the beginning, I ran more like 8:45
It felt like going slower would actually cost more energy...
That continued for the first 6 miles and then more or less out of the blue I started walking right after 6 miles
From there on it became a terrible walk-run deal. Sometimes I would be able to motivate me for half a mile to run, other times I would walk-run 0.1 miles...
At least I managed to go through the turnaround, that was difficult as the finish line was in sight... At that point, I just wanted to finish!
What was also difficlt is that it became obvious that the course was quite a bit longer than a half marathon! (one other runner also had 13.9miles on his Garmin...) It sucked already having to walk, but then even having to go nearly an extra mile felt like being cheated


I am not sure if I had pushed too hard on the bike already, but judging from how great I felt coming off the bike, I am pretty sure that it was the pace on the first 6 run miles that "brought me down"

Hang around at the finish line, had lots of HEED, some melon

It was a weird finish line feeling, with all sprint and oly participants long gone and everybody else leaving soon also. The post race party did not happen until 6pm that night. That made the finish line pretty deserted


Overpacing on the run


Great race especially if you spend a whole weekend in town
Extremely flat run, fairly flat bike