5430 Long Course Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

My stomach started to bother me before the swim start. Never has this happened before and I was thinking to myself..."not now, not today!" I stuck to the back of the wave as usual to avoid being clobbered by the others. I was able to draft a bit more in this race as it was pretty crowded for the first 1300 yards. The bouys were nicely lined up and my navigation was pretty good. It wasn't until the final stretch where two men from the waves behind me made contact as they plowed through the field. I think they need to work on their sighting as there was plenty of room and no need to get even close to others at that point of the swim.

I can't think of anything. I did what I could do.

My Transition area was the farthest away from the "swim in" area.
For the the first time ever, I really struggled to get my wetsuit off. It got stuck on my wrist and then my foot. I tried sitting down to get it off and after making some headway stood up to finally yank it off. I wasn't trying to break and records in transition but this was very slow for me.

I am happy with my bike time and my second lap was 2.25 minutes faster then my first. I was fortunate to have cloud cover for the first lap which really helped with the heat issues. I made sure to drink a lot and even was successful with the two water bottle hand offs that I attempted. That was the first time I tried that. The only problem I had on the bike was some cramping of my hamstring and numbness in my toes. I had to take my foot out of the cleat a few times and tried to make changes in my position to help.
I left the 12-27 on my bike as I figured the pay off for the easier gear was worth giving up a more powerful gear. I am not sure that that was the best choice. I kept spinning out so quickly that I know I lost some good time just waiting to be able to pedal. (this happened numerous times). I have to say that this was one of the least painful (muscle related) bike portion of any tri I have done. Should I have pushed harder, should I have changed my cassette? Maybe. I decided it was better to be safe then sorry for this race. A highlight of the ride was chatting with STMass. It is so nice to see a friendly face out on the course.

Maybe change out the cassette.

I decided to use lace locks for my shoes even though I usually use Yanks as I was worried about the Yanks bothering me if my feet started swelling on the run. The lace locks were great!
I took a few seconds to put some sun screen on as well as make a stop at the port-a-potty.

For me the heat was definately a factor on the run. Since I was so undertrained for this (especially the run) my goal was to just go out there, do the best I could do and hopefully finish without suffering some heat related illess that has been plaguing on much shorter distances. My plan was to walk the hills, run as much as I could beyond that and do whatever I had to do to try and keep myself cool and hydrated (I have never drank so much Gatorade in my entire life as I did the days leading up to a race). I stopped at every aid station to pour water on me, fill my hat and shirt with ice and grab spunges. This worked for the most part on the first lap. When I was running, I was doing an ok pace for me. The second lap things got worse. As much as I tried to run, I just wasn't getting very far. I spent even more time at the aid stations trying to cool off and even tried a few pretzels and some coke a couple of times as the thought of eating another Gu or Gu Chomp was not at all appealing. There was no shade at all and from the few race reports and comments I have read, that was a factor for people. While I put some sun screen on before the run, I have a pretty good sunburn (certainly all the water I poured on my didn't help). I used Salt Stick and I think that helped. I really wanted to run more the second lap and I really think that is was the conditions more then my fitness that was a limiter. My legs could do it but I just was depleated. The medic at the finish line asked me if I was ok as I apparently had blue lips. I told him I thought I was and indeed felt better after awhile. My shoes were completly soaked and everytime I bent down to tighten them up, I would get really dizzy when I stood back up. That was a huge indicator for me that things were getting worse. By the final two miles of the run, I made it a goal to finish in under 7:00 hours.

I am not sure what I could have done about the hydration/over heating issue. I certainly couldn't have done more then I did to try and keep cool. Better and longer training in heat would certainly have helped.

Walked around for a short while and then plopped myself down under the canopy that my friends had set up along the run course.


Training, training, training and the heat.


I have to say that I am glad I did this race and am equally as glad that it is over.
I don't have any other WTC race to compare this to but the race Tee-shirts were really really small and the finishers medals while nice had the wrong printing on them The medal says 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile swim. Huh? Shouldn't they have been able to get that right?

As a side note, 1700 people signed up for this race and there were a little over 1200 starters. That seems like an awful lot. There were quite a few pros that never even started.

It was great to finally meet Gaye and Pete and as always having Steve there made it a much better day. Also thanks to Matt (mcgilmartin) for volunteering and the positive words leading up to race day.