Ironman 70.3 Mooseman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The water temperature was much warmer than anticipated - 64F, but I decided to go with the neoprene swim cap anyways. I placed myself square in the middle of the pack, based on my prediction of a 32ish minute swim and previous results for this race. This turned out to be probably too conservative, since I found that I maybe could have went out slightly faster. At the second turn (returning to the beach), I thought "Wow... are we really almost done already?" and just settled into a nice rhythm to finish off within a few seconds of my goal time.

Sooo disoriented - I really should have practiced removing my wetsuit BEFORE the race. Couldn't find the velcro or the zipper cord and fumbled around while running out of the water until a nice volunteer helped me get sorted out. Found my bike without any issue and then began the process of deciding what to wear - It still wasn't raining and I decided to go sans jacket or tights. I grabbed my shoes and socks and jogged barefoot through the swamp - err.. transition area - to the bike out. Wiped off most of the mud and put on the socks and shoes then started the 56 mile journey through the mini-mountains of New Hampshire.

Practice removing wetsuit!

On the first small and steep hill, I was crawling along and drifted off the side of the road and just kinda' "tipped over". The only thing that was hurt was my ego, and perhaps to a lesser degree, my hip and ankle.
Shortly after, I was thinking out loud "Gee... We've been going uphill forever! Is this the big hill?" A fellow racer confirmed it, and I was relieved to be almost done the first major climb! Several people blew past me on these hills, and some of them were seen later walking their bikes. It was very difficult to keep the power under threshold on this section, sometimes slowing to below 5mph. The descents were fun, but a bit slow with the wet and winding roads. Lots of precious energy was lost to braking on these sections. The second loop was much like the first, and I was working through my homemade energy gel supply. At around mile 40, I decided that I wanted to eat something different and reached out towards a volunteer for what I thought was an energy gel packet, but turned out to be a half banana.


Have a higher FTP for the hills...

Better than T1, but still needs work... Saw someone biking in front of me reach down and remove feet from shoes while coasting and thought that it was a good idea, so I tried it and it worked out well. Grabbed all my stuff for the run - visor, tums, new gel flask, changed out of my disgusting socks and put on running shoes, and then I was off for the run!

The run was mostly a blur... it seemed to happen very quickly, I just ran mostly by perceived effort with occasional help from the heart-rate monitor. I was targeting a tempo effort, not too hard but not slacking off. At this point I didn't feel like eating any more of my gel, so I started eating whatever happened to be handed out at the aid stations - GU chomps, gels, and even coke. My stomach was not impressed, so I ate some tums with about 5 or 6 miles to go. Managed to hold it together and the volunteer support was really amazing for the last few miles, the cheering and encouragement helped immensely!

Stood in the lake for awhile


Volunteers were amazing, great day overall.