Ironman Calgary 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

OK, I knew I was going to be the slowest guy on the swim, so newbie wave was a good thing. Still dark (overcast) at 7;00 am start, so water was disconcerting. Swim started good, but heartrate lept, lost the rhythm, and finally decided to go with backstroke. took it fairly easy, constant speed, rolling to sight every 16 strokes. Managed to adjust my stroke so that I kept fairly straight. No dizzyness on way out of water (unlike last race).

OWS practice practice practice. The cold water strategies worked, in that I did not feel cold at all during swim. I have only been swimming now for 18 months, so I was happy to beat the cutoff with backstroke.

Slow for several reasons. My t1 bag was misplaced, was in the pile of completed bags, so mine must have been grabbed by mistake and thrown in wrong pile. Took a while for volunteers to find it. Had a volunteer stay with me, assist with change.

Put on socks, using trick of covering inside of socks with body glide. They slipped on and in right place, on wet feet, and fast. Suh-weet!

Went with arm-warmers, they were a pain that body glide did not help. Volunteer was great help getting them on. Volunteer also packed up my stuff so I did not have to spend time on that.

Bike was lonesome on rack by then. anything near the bike would have been well disturbed.

Strippers were great!

stopped to use porta-potties on way out (there goes another minute....)

not lose my T1 bag.
pee before getting out of water.
run

kept HR below threshold, just try to enjoy as much as possible. Being later on the course meant that I missed all the rain the earlier riders hit. No crowds in the aid stations. Dropped the chain once on shift to big ring. Quick fix, and then just was more careful on shift up.

Stayed in aero more than I thought I would, it was comfy for most of ride, although my back/shoulders hurt quite a bit after race.

Traffic control was great for bike, had near accident during sprint race in May, so this calmed me quite nicely.

need to tweak my understanding of where my threshold is, and push it a bit more. my first half/second half bike splits were within 30 seconds, so no fading happened, but that implies I could go a bit harder (or a lot harder :-))

directed to wrong spot on rack (volunteer was directing for guy behind me), so lost a little bit there. felt quick.

actually listen to volunteer, and look at the signs myself

run started out fast. forced myself to slow down to not flame out. had some gastric distress through race, and had to walk part of second half. Without that, I think that I could have laid down 1:55 at min. only had to start counting steps for last 4k, finished strong.

better pre-race nutrition, would help that GI distress

3 cups of pepsi, water, then food line, kept pacing in finish area as HR came down.


loved this race, the view was so nice on bike and run. Forced myself to look at it at regular intervals and not be just focused on road.

loved the newbie category. I would have been overrun by the next wave if I had to start in my age group, and that alone would have screwed the race for me. As it was, it was the most calm swim for a triathlon that I have ever done.