Lone Star Triathlon Festival - Half Iron - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

As usual was pretty nervous about swimming with a wetsuit, been through 3-4 so far and my arms always seem to get tired when I wear one. I actually watched Emilio's video of how to put on the Desoto wetsuit. No issues with the wetsuit this time. Guess I can actually cross out the name of the person I bought it from since I won't be selling it.

Friday night I guess they had hurricane force winds in Galveston 75mph... Swim for the Oly and Sprint on Saturday was cancelled, looked pretty nasty out there. We didn't have it quite that bad on Sunday but it was pretty choppy (at least for me)

Started out on the right side near the front, should have listened to Eric and started right side front row, figured a couple rows back was ok but I think I would have gone better in the front outside. I have some kind of issue swimming up on people. I completely stop, try to figure out some way around, then swim again, did this quite a few times up until the first turn buoy, then had more open water. Not sure what my problem is, don't care if people swim over me, kick me, etc, but never sure what to do when I swim up on people, can't draft, something to work on...

Somewhere I had read about swimming with waves, trying to time my breath at the top of the wave so I didn't get a mouthful of water. This worked pretty well, waves were much higher than I was used to so had to come much further up to see anything. Sighting often got me off my wave riding so swallowed a bit of water here and there.

Got into a nice groove, turned around last buoy, got kicked pretty hard in the goggles by a breast stroker near the finish, he actually stopped to make sure I was ok, which was cool, I told him not to worry and go on, was surprised it didn't break my goggles, or give me a black eye, it was a pretty good shot.





Not much, I think if the water was flatter I could have gone sub 40. Also need to figure out that stopping thing, I am sure that costs me quite a bit of time every race.

Overall pretty happy with this swim given the conditions.

A bit long but since it was supposed to be so sunny out I took the time to put on sunscreen. Fairly long run from the water to my bike, hit the wetsuit strippers.

Sat down, washed off feet, dried them off quickly, sunscreen, DZ's nutz, etc.



Nothing, overall goal was to make sure I was comfortable for the bike leg.

Goal was to ride this in my Tempo zone 177 - 211. Was able to stick to the zone on the entire way out. About mile 20 my back started to tighten up which caused me to have to sit up every so often to stretch it out.

Passed Trevor about mile 5 and said hi, saw both John and Sam on my way back.

It was pretty cool to see Lieto out front on the bike, lol he was quite a bit ahead of me on his way in, on my way out.

No issues with the infinit, finished all of it, took water bottles at 2 of the exchanges, one each direction, put on a 2nd cage, not much room but just enough to fit the water bottles they hand out.

On the way back in, my legs started feeling a bit heavier, so I toned it back a bit, really wanted to make sure I had enough to do the kind of run I thought I could do. Not sure why my legs wore out, riding in that zone was set-up not to over-tax the legs.

Probably lost my 20mph avg in the little bit in and out of Moody gardens to get to the Seawall. On the way out, not sure why there were so many people going so slow, was tough to get around them. On the way back in, I think was the strongest headwind of the day.

Overall out on the course there were some decent winds, nothing too bad but almost 1mph faster on the way back in.

Not sure, most of my training was set to get me better on the bike to have enough left for the run but didn't work out this time. I think I just need some more races under my belt to figure it out.

LOL, I didn't realize I was coming to the dismount line, only had one foot out and on top of shoes, so hopped off the bike carrying one shoe and another attached to the pedal.

More sunscreen on again.

Almost ran off without my fuel belt which had all my gels in them.

Not much, besides the goofiness with the dismount.

Plan was to run this at 9:00/miles which should have been well within my ability.

Ran out of transition and realized I was doing about an 8:15 pace, HR was way too high. Slowed it down quite a bit, pace slowed but HR stayed up.

Saw Sam Maglone run by on my first lap, which was pretty cool.

Not sure if it was the heat or what, but the run was just tough, couldn't keep my HR down, legs started to get heavy. Ended up walking just about every aid station, would be curious to see how much water I drank as I probably took a full cup every time I passed one (there was one every 3/4 mile or so) Took on sponges, had kids hit me with squirt guns, anything to try and keep cool.

Stopped at one point and asked a volunteer if they had any sunscreen, so took time to put some on.

Actually pretty surprised that I was even sub 10:00 as much as I walked.

On the last lap both my calves started to tighten up, had to talk to them to ask them to please keep it together for the last bit of the race, didn't want to have to limp across the finish line.

Saw John out there, he gave me a good slap on the butt and told me to get going, lol.

High five'd Sam once or twice.

High Five'd Andy and his wife on the way to the finish line, was great to see them out there. Long day to hang out and watch us all in the sun.

Was extremely happy to finally cross the finish line.



Hoping that the heat had a lot to do with my performance here, I know my training was rock solid.

I think I do need some more longer running races under my belt to help deal with different conditions.

Got my finishers medal, saw Suzy and she congratulated me which was awesome. Same from Suzy's husband Paul and John's wife Jarrett. Calves started to really act up so had to keep moving.

Had some recoverite, nasty stuff.

Bought an overpriced shirt from the Ironman store, well Andy bought it for me since they were closing and my wallet was back in the room...

Had a beer or two, waited for Sam to finish.


Conditions weren't ideal but not sure I can blame them on my time. Was looking to go 5:30, ended up about 24 minutes off that pace. Happy with sub 6.

Learned a lot and will be working on a few specific things to get ready for the next one.


Had a great time meeting everyone that came down from the SWBKRUN mentor group. We are already looking to other events this year to meet up for we had such a great time.

As far as the race. Not sure what the IM brand added to Keiths race. The Expo was tiny compared to last year from what I understand and it was only IM brand sponsors, no local guys it seemed.

Not that I do races for schwag but at Mooseman they had finishers towels, shirts and a water bottle, and I believe they had the same at Lonestar last year, but not this year, guess that's the price you pay for switching over to the IM brand...

The race itself was very well run. Volunteers were great, course was fun, lots of spectators, tons of well stocked and manned aid stations, etc.