EnduraSport Half - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Overall went pretty well. Happy with the swim. Took a wide position on the left hand side. Might have added a bit of distance, but was worth it to stay out of the mosh pit. The first two "sides" of the triangle were with the current, but the homestretch was pretty difficult. It was definitely choppy and I heard that a few people were pulled out by the lifeguard.

Looking back, I should have found someone to draft off of, especially on the second lap.

I could definitely do this faster. Go the wetsuit off ok. Took my time in the transition. I would rather get everything right and spend an extra minute in T1. Definite room for improvement though. After getting on the bike and starting up the hill, I pulled a total newbie mistake. I hit a small crack in the pavement and my two water bottles in the back cages fell out, along with all of my nutrition in the back of my jersey. I had to unclip, run back down the hill, pick all of it back up. Biggest mistake was that in my state of urgency I somehow did not pick up my enduralyte pills that I had in a small plastic bag.

After I got myself situated from everything falling off of my bike, the course started with a good climb out of the transition out to 564. The 56 miles were three laps of 18 miles. My goal was to do each lap in under an hour. Started out pretty strong. Felt smooth and the rain made it very wet, but cooling as well. Nothing really exciting on the first lap except for the descent on 313. It was raining pretty hard at that point. The descent on 313 is very steep and then a steep climb back up. The kicker is that the entire down and up is done in the shoulder of 313 which was blocked off with orange cones. About half way down the descent, a cop car had two cars pulled over on the shoulder. So there I am, going 40+mph down the shoulder straight at a cop car. I had to slam on the brakes and pull on the 313 itself making sure not to turn into traffic coming down the hill as well. First lap was in 55 minutes, so everything was good there. There was a water bottle hand-off at the end of each lap. I made another rookie mistake of taking only one water bottle. Mental note to fix that next time. Second lap was going really well. Cop car had moved. About 1/4 mile before the water bottle handoff, I blew my front tire. Pulled over and got it changed, but that definitely cost me some time. Probably 10 minutes (I had some C02 issues). Second lap was 65 minutes. The third lap I felt great and finished strong. There was definitely a need for more bike support on the course. Saw a lot of flat tires out there, mostly from all the debris on the shoulder. It would have been nice to ride the same race on a closed course vs. the shoulder.

Make sure to get enough bottles at the hand-off. Carry two tubes and enough C02s.

Felt strong going into transition. Wife and kids were there, so I stopped to give them hugs and kisses. That cost me some time as well, but I consider it well spent.

I felt surprisingly good coming off of the bike. My nutrition plan was solid and I had enough hydration. The rain was still on/off which felt really really good. Started out running 8 min/mile pace but the hills on 564 took a lot out of my. Had a small cramp in my left hamstring completely out of nowhere. Had to walk a bit for it to work itself out. Losing my enduralytes in T1 was coming back to haunt me. By the end of the first lap, my wife told me "you had that scary look in your eyes" which is how I get when I really start digging deep. At the first aid station on the second lap, I grabbed some pretzel sticks, which did not sit well at all. Had to deal with gas pains for the whole second lap, which slowed me down considerably.

The run is definitely my weakest segment. I need to improve on this. Gives me something to focus on in the off season.

One random thing that impressed me the most was the womens winner. I had made a comment to my dad how many really fit older women there were in the race. The womens winner was 51 years old, finished in 5:19, and fnished 12th overall. Very impressive. My compliments to her.