Izena 88 Triathlon - TriathlonLong Course

This was my first triathlon and my first open-water swim in the ocean. The chop came up really high and caused problems with my breathing. Since it was my first time and my freestyle was only a few seconds per 100m faster than my breaststroke, I decided to breaststroke most of the time. I used the freestyle to pass slower swimmers, actually! I was kind of amazed I passed anybody...

But the swim portion went really well for me. I was very pleased with the time.

I'm not sure how to keep salt water out of my mouth or even if it is possible, but if there was any way I could do that, I would. I'm writing this report two days later and my tongue still hurts from the 51 minute salt-water soak it got.

I was moving pretty slowly- I'm just a newbie and so I didn't have riding shoes, etc.- I was putting on the shoes I would later run in, the shirt I would later run in, etc. So, I just took my time with it.

The bike was really tough on me. The course would have been extremely fast had the wind not been blowing so hard. As it turns out it was gusting directly in our faces just at several places where we faced long climbs. I selected "Too Hard" for my pacing above because on the first 3 laps I attacked these sections too hard, considering my conditioning level and the wind. On the last lap and a half I was really just dead in the legs and had a lot of nausea. My first lap was done in 31 minutes and the last one took me 50 minutes!

I would be much more conservative with my pace after noticing what the winds were doing to me! I also need to pay some more attention to my bike fitness and take that up another notch.

This transition was easy for me considering my equipment (or lack of it!). I just jumped off the bike, replaced the bike helmet with a running cap and took off. The length of the transition really had more to do with the size of the area- it took a while to get from one end to the other- and also with the fact that I stopped to tank up on some more fluids and get a few wets sponges at an aid station just before the exit onto the running course.

I was in a lot of pain from the end of my bike segment not going so well when the run started. I spent the first 2km recovering from that by run-walking quite a lot, then began to have more consistency keeping running by the time I was reaching the 4km and 6km points. The problem then was the difficulty of the hills. I had a weird chest pain just behind my sternum (which I felt a few times during my brick workouts, also) which made things kind of difficult, too. My legs didn't feel too bad, my lungs felt like they could handle a little more speed, but the chest pain was telling me to watch it! By the time the second 10km started I was much more settled into the run and did a bit better, even though my time was about 4 minutes slower on that lap. That mystifies me, actually, because the second lap felt so much better. I can only assume that I was probably pushing harder on the first lap and didn't realize/perceive it considering how bad I was feeling at the time.

Get in better run shape!

I think my main limiter right now is my weight. I weigh 96kg, which is 8kgs (about 17.5 pounds) more than I did this time last year. I've been disappointed that I've been unable to keep the weight off, eat better, etc. I think that the same training I did this time + weight loss alone would improve my time considerably.


I rated the race as "Too Hard" for me only because I probably underestimated the difficulty of it. It is a great race and I hope to do it in the future. Izena is a beautiful island, the local people go all out to make the event memorable, and the length (almost half-Ironman) make it a great race for people of all levels.