Redman Triathlon - Half Redman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

So this was the Halfmax championship. Now, I swam competitively for like 20 years, and I can swim with the best of them. (OK, maybe not the elite, but any triathlete). You could tell the Halfmax qualifiers- they situated themselves in the front row and made sure to kick as hard as they could. I'm a big guy 6'5 240, and I was like "this is BS". Whatever. I decided to play the drafting game and tried to make a move on the outside at the first turn. Pretty good swim, but some of these guys were just being %&)($%(&*.

Nothing, I decided to hold my ground and not worry if I hurt someone else since everyone else seemed to want to do some damage. Not a bad time considering how cold I was at the start.

The wetsuit strippers were AWESOME! I was out of my wetsuit in no more than 15 seconds! Ran to the bike quick and was so pissed to see everything soaked. I mean drenched.

Nothing, not much you can do in a torrential downpour.

Here's a case where being a fast swimmer totally sucks. I was like the 8th person out of the water overall. The rest of the people were the same speed demons trying to kick my head off. OK, whatever, that's the sport. Except I hop on the bike, start moving, and I realize how much water is on the ground and how much I didn't train in rain. And rain kept coming. Uh oh. Then I am trying to keep my balance and speed up on the bike while avoiding crashing, and all these super-fast dudes are screaming "on your left". The first 8 miles of this really sucked and were totally stressful. I realized after a while that with all the time on my bike this summer that I was fine. And I got into a groove after passing the portion where we had to walk because the road was washed out. So I hit the pedals hard and felt great. Saw CitySky @ B3, she was totally rad- she needs to wear a cheerleader outfit. I've never seen such enthusiasm in a volunteer. Totally made me happy to see another BT'er.

I don't know, move somewhere that's not as awesome as Colorado so I can ride in the rain? Kept a pretty good pace- my goal was 20, 19.2 is not bad. So I guess not much. Although Abby's boxing gloves on my seat kind of confused people- I think they thought they were a euphemism for testes. No, folks, not at all. They were for Abby S, my lucky charm and training inspiration who died in July after a battle with a heart defect and a myriad of other problems. She was tough, hence the pink boxing gloves.

The little things don't matter. Again, everything was soaked. So I put on my compression sleeves for my calves, rolled on my gross socks, and put on my running shoes that must have weighed 4 lbs. each. Ugh. This stunk! Stopped to pee and put some biofreeze on my back.

Not much, if it were warm and dry this would have been 2 minutes. But it wasn't, so it is what it is.

I don't know what to say. My 1st 1/2 marathon. It was soaking wet and my shoes weighed 4 lbs. each. I was so happy to be off the bike, I wanted to keep a 10 min/mile pace. Didn't happen. But I won't complain either. I was psychologically fine til mile 8. Got kind of delirious and wasn't thinking straight. Walked for a bit and had to stop and stretch. Back killing and hamstrings literally locked up. Calves felt great- those compression socks work! I don't know, I am not happy with this time but 6 months ago I could not have even finished this run. I run like a swimmer. Enough said.

I'm going to train a lot more- trade in swim hours for run time next season.

Thought I was going to pass out in the recovery tent. Nurse helped me out, got me seated and got me some food. So good! I watched some others come in and it occurred to me that I was a half-ironman. I wished my kids could be there to see me, but that's life. Tried to walk around ungracefully. Took advantage of the free massage (needed it!). Talked with some other athletes for a bit but couldn't muster any energy. My mind was also shot at this point.


Rain. And more training time running.


Loved this experience. I wish I could have met more BT'ers, but that's OK because the ones I did get to meet were awesome. I want to do this again- next year I might try the full aquabike. I still want to be an Ironman before 2012, so I've got some time. The people of Oklahoma are freaking awesome folks. I've seriously never met someone from TX, OK, KS, NE, or the Dakota's that I didn't like. Great time, great race, I want to come back again.