NutmegMan Half Ironman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Uh, yeah right. There was no way in hell this was a full 1.2 mile swim. Everyone was saying this (the first girl out of the water did it in 16 minutes). I had no idea how long it took me, because I was too cold to care and don't wear a stopwatch in the water...But no worries, the bike and run would more than make up for it. Still...kinda lame. Judging from my time, it was well under a mile.

Nothing. Navigation was tough because of the mist. Tried to keep an eye on the kayaks because you could actually see them, but they drifted, too.

Slowest transition ever. But it was cold, couldn't feel either my hands or my feet, so I'll cut myself some slack on how hard I was pushing at this point.

Nothing really. Everything was organized properly, I was just not moving all that fast.

The bike...was brutal. They said "rolling" hills, a "challenging but fair course"...Well, no rolling hills. They were just...HILLS. And really high grade, super intense, three loop course of hills. The few serious downhill bits were thrilling (35 mph, at times). But that didn't compensate for the climbing. Which was...all of it. I put "bad" for the hills, but I think that's more of an assessment of the course than of my performance. I was slow going up them, but since they had misrepresented the course, I hadn't trained on anything like this at all. I was creeping up the hills with everyone else. It was slow going, but I was trying not to push too hard so I had something left in me for the second loop, the third loop and then the run. I'm sort of uncertain how to rate my performance, because MAN, I was slow, but also MAN, that course was really super awful.

Nice transition. Never been so happy to re-rack my bike and put on a pair of running shoes. That bike segment was pretty intense.

Nothing. Good transition, everything organized properly.

It took three miles for me to feel my feet again. They had been numb during the entire bike segment. The course? More brutal hills. They describe the course as "easy up, easy down"...which is pretty freakin' inaccurate--again, serious grade hills that made you feel like maybe you were walking up a walk instead of running up a hill. There were very few flat sections (I think I counted two, though one was more of an incline than a flat), and my split shows it. Slowest half marathon time, ever.

Choose a different race?

Stretched a lot. Tried walking, but that was pretty painful, so I stuck with just stretching. I won 2nd place in my age group, which was a nice little surprise at the end of such a tough race. The girl who got first picked up the pace something wicked on the run and beat me by 2 minutes. Still, the goodie bag was fun--even got a new LED lamp for my bike! :)


The course. Sounds like a lame-o excuse, but it's the truth. Last year's HIM I did in 5:50-something. This year's 6:50-something is a pretty big difference, and I've gotten faster on all three sports since then.


This race is getting an average rating from me. It's not necessarily a "bad" race, but it was advertised as "challenging but fair" with "rolling hills" on the bike and "easy up, easy down" on the run--and I have to disagree. It was a very, very difficult course. I understand they're probably afraid if they told the truth about how hilly it is (NOT rolling hills, either, btw), they might not attract a lot of participants. It was a tiny field to begin with. But it was unfair to those who had signed up believing there were "some hills" on the run, or the course was "rolling hills" and thus had not trained for it the way they maybe should have, had they understood what the course looked like. I was thinking they could try to attract the toughie triathletes among us by saying it was a really tough race, etc. But I'm not sure that would work.

Beyond that, the people were super nice, the bike course could stand one more aid station (there was only one). A nice race, but be prepared...