EagleMan Ironman 70.3 Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The Choptank clearly earned it's name for a reason: chop! The swim was simply brutal. The first few hundred meters heading out went with the waves (and I guess current), and wasn't so bad. However, the bulk of the swim was going into the choppy water (and I think against the current), which made for absolutely miserable conditions. Much of the time I couldn't see over the oncoming waves to sight the buoys, and about 1/3 of the time I sighted I looked right into an oncoming wave and got slammed. I never found a rhythm.

Also, for some reason my sighting was horrible for this swim. Twice I had to cut back to get back outside the buoys, costing me probably 2-3 minutes. And likely due to the large size of my age group, I had a real tough time finding clear water to swim in. It seemed there was always someone barging in front of me or smacking my feet behind me (maybe drafting?), which further hindered my success in finding a nice rhythm.

To add insult to injury, I was stung by a jelly fish. I never saw anything, but about 1/4 way into the swim I had this strong burning sensation on my face. It lasted maybe 10 minutes. I now have this focus of red spots on the back of my neck, which is probably where I got bit. Ouch.

Brutal, miserable swim. My time is over 10 minutes longer than what I predicted.

I guess more exposure to rough conditions would help.

Longer T2 than usual. As I got to my transition spot, I saw the guy next to me getting out of his wetsuit. I made a general comment about the rough swim conditions as I was starting to pull off my wetsuit. The poor guy goes on to tell me that he had been disqualified from the race. The water was so rough, he had actually gotten nauseous and was vomiting into the river. One of the kayakers went to check on him for support. He said he needed to hold on to the kayak, at which point they disqualified him from the rest of the race. That really stinks for the guy. He looked to be in great shape and ready to race.

Nothing. I lost about 1 minute talking to a fellow racer that was having a bad day.

This ride was demoralizing. The headwinds and sidewinds, complemented by gust after gust made for tough riding conditions.

I tried to pace myself so I could keep a steady effort for the duration of the ride and still have something left for the run. My strategy was to simply survive the portions of the ride that had the worst headwinds by maintaining a high (90's) cadence, regardless of speed, and hammering a bit harder (but still keeping the cadence >90) during the brief moments where there was a tailwind.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with my perfomance, especially considering that I've done minimal long rides so far this season.

My nutrition goals were to consume 2 bottles of gatorade/hour plus 1 gel and 2 endurolytes every hour. At the end of the ride, I was ahead by 1 bottle of gatorade.

Turns out that by the end of the race I was pretty dehydrated. I would change my nutrition plans to include alternating straight water with gatorade.

As far as the biking went, I'm satisfied with my performance.

OK, this was a little longer than normal, but I really didn't care. I had a couple of baked lays before heading off to the run. That may have cost me a few seconds.

Nothing really. This was my first HIM, and I didn't feel the urgency to win T2.

I'm not thrilled with my performance on the run. I really hoped to keep my pace under 8 minutes/mile. The bike clearly took a lot out of me. Also, I was definitely getting dehydrated (really thirsty during the run, and never really having to use the bathroom until after the race--which was nowhere close to 'clear' if you know what I mean). I haven't done enough bricks either.

Two things I am really happy about during the run are:

1. None of my irksome running injuries (ITB, runner's knee) bothered me in the slightest,

2. I managed to pull negative splits to the end. That paid off nicely, as I passed several runners by the end that had passed me early in the run.

More running, especially coming off the bike. I hadn't even done a 13 mile run yet this year.

Hydration, hydration. I was certainly beyond the 3% dehydration level, where dimished performance is expected.

Walked around, watched some of the other finishers.


This was posted on my training log 6/1/06: "New adjusted time goal for Eagleman: < 6hrs (5:30 would be a dream)"

Well, based on the comment in my training log from a little over 1 week ago, I guess my race results are a dream come true. Having never done a HIM, I really didn't know what to expect. In the end, I'm very happy with my performance, but being competetive in nature (like most of us), I find it easy to criticize the race and see areas where I should have done better--even though my overall time really far exceeded my expectations.


Extremely well organized and run event. I would definitely consider doing this race again (if I could stomach the Choptank!). This race, and doing the 70.3 distance was a great challenge.