Full Vineman Triathlon - TriathlonFull Ironman

The start felt like a salmon run. They started a wave every two minutes. Orange caps in the start corral, green caps in the water! Pick caps in the start corral, orange caps in the water! Wait, that's me! I'm pink. By the time I got to the right side of the water the horn was blowing. OK, I guess it's time to swim. Up the river on the right, down the river on the right. Up the river on the right, down the river on the right.

Parts of the river are pretty shallow but you can swim the whole thing. On the second lap I did walk around the turn for a few steps. I was glad to see the bridges at the end of the second lap.

This was a good swim for me. Swim more and continue to improve!

Wetsuit strippers. Run to bike, get bag. Run to changing tent near swim exit, change. Run to bike, shove gear into bag, wipe feet and put on bike socks and shoes, grab bike and run to Bike Out. My mom yelled, "Now the for the fun part!"

Not sure. I'm glad that I put on dry shorts. 112 miles is a long way. No reason to invite monkey butt.

I drove the course the Thursday before the race. The roads have a reputation for being bad and they were not great. The section at mile 5 just after the Sunset Beach access is awful (After you see the Beach Access sign, prepare for a sharp right turn, a little neighborhood jaunt and another turn and a steep uphill. The sign is your queue.). Westside definitely had it's road condition issues as does Chalk Hill. When we did the course preview I did not notice that Eastside was particularly bad but on race day it seemed to be pretty bad. Pleasant Road was not so pleasant either. That being said, it's not a lot worse that the back roads in North Carolina and they do not have gravel on them and there were not pot holes like in NC -- just old, rough roads for the most part. The pavement was a mix of asphalt and concrete. Anyway, I'd say that overall the roads are not as bad as they are rumored to be although many of them could use repaving. The course is extremely beautiful.

First lap was fast. Second lap was slower but that was due to the laps not being exactly the same. You go down River Road -- flat and fast -- on the first lap and then use Eastside -- uphill and rough road -- on the second lap. Also, it was overcast during the first lap and the marine layer burned off by the second lap which meant that the wind picked up. At first I thought the wind was in my head but others mentioned the wind on 128. At any rate, my second loop was slower.

I saw a lot of carnage on the bike route. Tons of flats. It seemed significantly more than in Beach2Battleship last year. I don't know if it was people using a race setup that was not appropriate to conditions or what. I used my trusty Continental GP4000S tires pumped to just shy of 100 psi.

I did not stop a single time on the bike. I did pee twice.

I drank seven bottles of water (first two with camelbak elixir) and ate four Clif bars, two Fig Newtons, a Milk N Cereal bar (messy, should have had a Honey Stinger Waffle instead), and a Clif gel. (1620 on the bike)

For Raleigh area people, Chalk Hill felt like Old Graham on steroids. It was long like Old Graham but a bit steeper.

Also, thanks to the other race report writers. I read that there is a lady ringing a cow bell on Chalk Hill. She is *not* at the top. That was a good thing to know.

Ride faster. I felt that 3 Mountain Madness and all of the times that I did the NCBC Summer Rally route were good preparation but I think that there is room for me to improve on this course.

I think that if you trained on the course, you could really improve your time. I don't mean riding it once, I mean doing most of your long rides on it.

Fast until the port-a-pot. Line there. Debated running a mile but afraid there would be a line at that john as well.

Also, it is a fairly long run from the dismount line the racking area which is in the school's courtyard.

I took my shoes of to run stocking foot into T2. I was changing socks anyway. I'm not sure how much faster I was without my cycling shoes on and it took a sec to get the shoes off so I'm not sure if I'd do that again or not.

The run is hilly and partly shaded. Given the minor hip injury that I have been dealing with, my plan was to run comfortably fast and kind of go from there rather than run x:xx minute miles at a steady pace. If my injury acted up and I needed to walk, I wanted to have time to play with.

The first lap went well. The back seemed easier than the out. I drank water at every stop and I grabbed a Clif Shot Block or two every other mile. This worked well for me. I took a few walking steps to drink the water (not wasting any water!) and ran the rest of the way. There were a lot of walkers. I was surprised to see a lot of the Barb's Race participants still out there.

The last mile of the loop (nearest the high school) had excellent crowd support especially on Windsor Road. While the support was good near the high school but not so good in the hilly sections on Starr Road and Mark West Station Road. (I think that Beach2Battheship may have had better run support overall).

I got my bracelet and headed back out there. The second lap I was still going pretty good but I started to get really hot. For a mile or so in there I kept on thinking, "I am so hot!" It was 87 degrees out (someone said the "realfeel" temp was 90). I knew that the temperature would be going down soon and that I had single digit miles to go. I got my second bracelet and headed back out for my final lap.

On the third lap, I held together pretty well for the first two miles then my water stop walks got longer and longer. My stomach was cramping some and I wanted water. I wanted something salty but I couldn't find a stop with pretzels (they seemed to be out). I had some sliced up peaches and that went down ok. I also had some cola (it was not flat, is flat cola an east coast thing?) and worked. I started to get really excited at the last two stops. After the last stop I was totally jazzed. Before I knew it I was in the chute! I got to run by the bracelet station and into the finish area! And the announcer got my name right! Woo hoo!



No injuries before race day! I had a hip injury about five weeks before the race. My piriformis and illiac crest acted up, time in physical therapy, etc.

The finish are a was nice and well organized. There were bleachers for spectators and that was nice. The announcer did a great job.

After the finish line, I was handed a medal, offered a photo and then directed to a table with finisher's shirts on them. From there, I was sent to an athlete's only area with food that included burgers, chicken, lots and lots of fresh fruit, chicken soup and cookies. I took a turkey burger, fruit, a cookie, and soup. The burger didn't go down so well. I ate every bit of fruit and soup. I went back and asked for more soup since that went down so well.


This is a good destination race. The river swim was a nice change and the bike course was hilly and challenging but doable. The road conditions, while not stellar, were not awful. The run was hilly so if you do this course, be prepared for that.

As an athlete, I think that this was a great event. I was treated well and there were a lot of volunteers on both the bike and run course. The run course got a little bit boring and I wish there had been more crowd support there.

I would do this event again sometime in the future.