Chesapeakeman Ultra Distance Triathlon - TriathlonFull Ironman

This was my first 2.4 mile swim in a race condition. I have swam the distance in the river before, but it was at an easy pace without a few hundred others around me. I was a little intimidated by the swim as it is definately my weakest discipline and it was less than 3 years ago that 50 yards without stopping was an accomplishment. The down leg was smooth and with the waves, when we made the first turn the chop was coming from the side, but when we turned for the leg back towards the start it was straight into the chop with the sun in your face. It was a little tough sighting with the waves and sun, every time you would look forward to sight you were greeted with a wave in your face. It was the longest of the 4 sides of the rectangular course as you had to swim past the start to the bouy by the exit ramp. After my first loop I thought hey that wasnt too bad, one more to go! I finished the swim, feeling good and really confident for IMFL!

Nothing, I could have pushed harder, but really what differnce would even 10 minutes make if I came out gassed.

I had to laugh when I saw my T1 time. In sprints and oly distances I am usually very fast in transitions. I had a coach tell me that it is 'free time' so I have practiced technique and am usually in the top few for transitions. I had decided to take this one easy, dry off, get changed, get something to drink, I figured a few extra minutes would be worth the comfort on the bike. But over 9 minutes! I could have ordered breakfast in that time!

Maybe not take it quite so leisurely! :)

I felt good on the bike. It was challenging with the headwinds but I pushed through them and took advantage of the few tail winds that we got. One section was the roughest washboard road that I have ever ridden on. It probably was only a mile or so, but felt like 10! Knowing that you got to enjoy it again on the second loop was not fun, but good mental training as I told myself when I hit that stretch again I will almost be done, so I was looking forward to it. I hit the Century mark at 4:55 and knew that I could break the 5:30 for the full distance.

Nothing really, I felt good and was happy with my performance. One thing I did learn for IMFL is that I want to put the bottle cage on my frame in addition to my rear seat bottles. When I got to the first bottle handoff I took a water and filled my aero bottle but then had no place to put the bottle. So I want to have two of my bottles on the back with my nutrition and then I can use the frame bottle cage for bottle exchanges.

I was done as I was just doing the Aqua Velo

Got some cold pizza and warm soda. Took a shower in the gym locker room. Got a massage and then we loaded up the car to drive to Naylors Beach triathlon that we were doing the next day.


It is a very small and low key event. The volunteers were great. The post race for the Aqua Velo seemed to be lacking a little bit. Warm sodas and cold pizza isnt my idea of refueling. 3 race T-shirts which at first I thought was cool, but then realized that two were advertising some event next year and the actual race shirt had a misprint on it with the swim being listed as 1.2 miles!