Redman Triathlon - Half Redman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

This swim was pretty nice. It was a bit crowded at the beginning. I seeded myself a little too far back, and had a hard time getting through some really slow people. Got bumped around quite a few times, and even kicked in the face, but luckily it was not a strong kick! After a couple hundred meters, it thinned out and I had no problems. I sighted pretty well until just after the turn around to go back, and then I tended to drift to the outside, but overall it wasn't bad. It was still overcast and lightly raining so the buoys were very easy to see. For me, this was a really good swim. I felt pretty strong, didn't get tired, and actually enjoyed it a lot - I'm just not fast! :)

Take more swimming lessons.

I was pleasantly surprised to find wetsuit strippers at the swim exit. I've never been stripped in public before, and you know, I kinda liked it! ;)
The rest of T1 was pretty uneventful; I didn't even bother drying off my feet because the towel I had was completely soaked by the rain, and they would've just gotten wet anyway as soon as I took off.

Maybe hurry up a little. I was taking my sweet time.

This bike started off poorly for me. I didn't get clipped in properly, or there was something screwy with my chain, I don't know, but I somehow slipped as I took my first pedal stroke and kind of fell down (the bike didn't go completely over on its side, but I did manage to scrape up my right knee pretty good). It stung a little, but mostly it was my ego that was bruised, heh. At least I gave the spectators some amusement!

After that incident I was a little worried, since it was still raining lightly and the roads were all wet. I thought I'd take it easy, but then when I got going, I was averaging 20+ mph all around the lake, and it felt good, plus I knew the course was supposed to be relatively flat and with few turns, so I decided to not hold back. I ended up passing a ton of people on this bike. I tried really hard to push up each hill and not slack off and coast anywhere. And it paid off. At the halfway point, I was at 1:27 so then my goal became doing the 56 miles in less than 3:00. I did get tired in the last 10 miles and slowed down a bit - this was when two of the ladies I'd passed caught up to me again, but I never gave up. I really enjoyed the course and all the support along the way (great police coordination & volunteers out there!!!). The only bad thing was that the roads themselves were pretty rough. I'd say at least half of the course is chip seal or equivalent roughness with plenty of potholes and bumps. But oh, how nice it felt when you'd hit a smooth stretch of road!

And I am happy to report that there was no peeing on the bike - at least not on MY bike! (that I know of ;) ) I wasn't too keen to repeat the pee-stravaganza I had at Racine, and luckily I didn't have to go at all at RedMan. Although, RedMan would've been the place to do it, with all that rain... !

Nothing. The official results show 19.1 mph as my pace, but my cateye registered 19.3, and I know I set it to the right tire calibration. So who to believe? Ah well, whatever it was, I had a good ride!

Took my sweet time again. And fiddled around with my race belt and couldn't get it to clip for a while. (Didn't I have this problem last time? Apparently, I didn't learn my lesson to just RUN with the belt and put it on later.)

This run started off surprisingly well. My shins weren't really hurting for some reason - they've been giving me a lot of trouble the last month, but they did ok here. The only bad part of the first lap was the crazy amount of standing water on the course - this park was NOT built for rain! My shoes were completely soaked within the first mile, and they never dried off. But I actually held a 10:00 pace for the first seven miles and was doing all the math in my head... I realized that if I kept up that pace, I would finish sub-six (with a couple minutes to spare). That was huge for me, since it's a long-standing goal, and I was feeling pretty good. It was also great to see BTers and my fellow KCM members on the run - very encouraging.

And then mile 8 hit, and my pace dropped to 11:00. uh-oh, what's happening? this is not good.... I started to really hurt too, especially in my hip flexors and butt fat (yes, my butt fat was KILLING me!). And I don't even have that big of a butt (or do I??). Anyway, from that point on, everything went downhill. I realized just before the end of mile 10 that I was not going to make it in under six hours, and I started to walk. Mental defeat I guess. From then on, I started walking more and more. It was disappointing, but by that point, my hips were hurting so much, I didn't care. I did not train enough to be able to keep a 10:00 pace for 13.1 miles. I still had a good time out there. The volunteers were fantastic, and the weather finally cleared up. It actually got hot for the last few miles (which of course, took me the longest). But I made it in, and it was still a PR for me - by a half hour, no less!

Not skip ANY runs in training, thereby (hopefully) avoiding the injuries that left me unable to train the past few weeks. And maybe do a couple barefoot runs each week to strengthen my feet.

After finishing, I grabbed some food and went to the medical tent to get my cut cleaned out. It wasn't that bad really, but it had had all sorts of icky stuff festering in it for the last 5 hours: rainwater, sweat, road grime, etc. So I got that cleaned out and then went to find Tom and Lisa at their tri club's tent. Didn't really see anyone else I knew. Chatted with them for a bit, then got my stuff out of transition and walked the mile back to my car to go to the hotel and SHOWER.


Lack of run training and poor swimming technique. One of these days, I'll do something about that second thing. Maybe.


This race is one of, if not the most well-organized race I've done. I had high expectations based on what I'd heard of the race and I was not disappointed. Good race swag, a nice, safe course, lots of police and volunteers out there, plenty of aid stations, and very good pre-race communication. The only complaint would be that the race venue is not very good if the weather is bad (it was basically a glorified mud pit by the end) but this is no fault of the RD's! I really enjoyed the race overall and had a great time!