Patriot Half Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I felt good on the swim, but I had some minor sighting / steering difficulty. Other than that, it was fine.

Look up more often...I think I lost about 30-45 seconds, maybe more on swimming way off course at one point.

Practice...I realized as I was setting up my gear, that I hadn't practiced my transition at all. I don't feel like I lost a lot of time, but practice would have helped me feel better about it...that includes presetting what nutrition I was going to take.

This was by far, the best bike effort I've ever had in my life. I actually stopped for about 3 to 5 minutes to help an injured cyclist who crashed right in front of me. She turned out to be very hot, but that didn't help my time.

Hmmmm, good question. (1) This was my first time with aero-bars and I think that was part of the extra speed. When I say first time, I mean first time. I rode for about 30 minutes with them the previous day, but hadn't trained with them. Sooo, I think I should have trained with them. (2) I would slow down to 19ph or so. (3) I was told by an ironman "pro" that my seat looked far too low, so maybe a bike fit.
As you will see, the run was a disaster!!!!!!!!!

Stretch, maybe???
Practice...I realized as I was setting up my gear, that I hadn't practiced my transition at all. I don't feel like I lost a lot of time, but practice would have helped me feel better about it...that includes presetting what nutrition I was going to take.

The quads in both legs cramped up immediately (before mile 1). When I came out of transition, I felt great, on top of the world, and then bang, I was on the ground wondering if I would finish. I spend several more tiems on the ground and essentially walked the 13 miles.
I felt like I had properly hydrated on the bike and drank an entire bottle of Powerade in the first two miles to try to beat the cramps. Didn't help. I then started taking "everything" at every aid station.

I'm not sure. I don't know if the quads cramping is from my training, biking, or nutrition, but I absolutely need to do something different, because I'm getting very discouraged.

Cramps on the run


It was a good race. I would prefer the bike course to be closed, but there were no issues from cars. Nice volunteers and well organized. It did start 15 min late, but ran smooth overall