2010 Whirlpool Ironman 70.3 Steelhead Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Chose an inside path to the first buoy. The first 50 yards were walking on the sand bar and then i swam. As soon as i started i felt my road ID bracelet come off so i grabbed it, stood up and put it back on and continued swimming. After that i just maintained a steady swim. There wasn't really any bumping of other swimmers to speak of except one guy who had horrible sighting and kept criss-crossing across my path and at one point ran into me. My sighting was very good based on the Garmin data.

Work on getting faster.

I realized that i forgot my bike glasses and i had to search thru my tri bag to find them. I also didn't have socks by my bike shoes so i went without them. I had everything covered in black garbage bags so it was a little slower too.

Get to transition earlier and don't miss my double-check of the setup.

Went out for first 3 miles a little slower but then picked up the pace to my goal watts of .85 LTP. I felt really good throughout the bike leg and the effort was moderately difficult. I had a little hip pain but I always have that and just flexing my leg helps that.

Nothing really. Very happy with the way it turned out. It was my strongest bike effort to date and it was the strength of this race for me.

Good T2

Nothing

Because I had done so well on the bike it reeally took some of the pressure off of my run. I had it in my head at that point to just try to run a 2 hour run. Also by the run it had statred to get a little warm. The weather was cool sometimes and warm sometimes depending on the clouds. I took the first mile fast but it also had a big hill at the end of it which I jogged up. I decided to tone it back a little on the pace to roughly 9 min pace and see how that went for a few miles. About mile 5 I started to feel a bit more fatigue and then there was the 2nd big hill on mile 6. I walked a portion of it. I also walked through most of the aid stations as well. After I cleared the last big hill I picked up the pace and especially on the last mile so I could finish strong. I used only the nutrition from the aid stations which was water, gatorade, bananas and later in the run it was ice. Ice really seems to help. It forces me to take the water slowly keeping me from overfilling with fluids. I also dumped water over my head at every aid station to keep cool. Between the ice and the water I think I kept a very nice body temp and never felt overheated like Orlando.

In retrospect I think I could have pushed a bit more to get under 2 hours and not walked as much through aid stations.

Walked around, talked to friends briefly and then went to my transition spot and sat down and even laid down for about 5 mins.


Transition preparation before the race.


This was a very well run race and I would do it again if it fits into my race schedule.