Half Full Triathlon - Olympic “40″ Distance - TriathlonOlympic

Decent swim I think. I am not sure if this time included the 400 yard run to T1 - I only saw a timing mat at T1 but others thought they saw one at swim exit. Either way this time is ok. Got clubbed in the eye during the swim passing somebody from an earlier wave who was swimming elementary backstroke. I guess that shouldn't irritate me but it does.

2011: 23:49
2012: 24:16

Spent some extra time here trying to get dry in preparation for a cold bike course.

2011: 4:06
2012: 4:21

Nothing, except I forgot my gloves at home. Made for numb hands later.

Rain really kicked in sometime during the swim, and the whole bike leg was very rainy, cold, and wet. Between my numb hands and wet brakes, I made the decision not to really push any of the downhills too fast. Got stuck behind car traffic for about a mile just past the high school, so had to ride the brakes for a while.

I expected Lance to pass me on the bike course, but he didn't. Looking back at the results, I think I missed it by only about 5 minutes. Hmmm... maybe I should have biked slower.

Last year's course was changed due to contribution so they changed it back this year. The difference is about 1.5 miles, so last year's bike course was really 31.1 and this year was 32.6 even though both were billed as "32". Last year was much windier though.

2011: 1:45:06 (31.1 miles @ 17.8mph)
2012: 1:48:57 (32.6 miles @ 18.0mph)

Not much of note here, except I had no feeling in my toes or fingers by the end of the bike.

2011: 2:02
2012: 1:56

The first two miles were a bit painful with numb toes, although they eventually warmed up. The rain managed to stop right around the time I was thinking that a cool rain in my face might actually feel nice. Splits show that I ran the 2nd half at a much faster pace than the 1st. I definitely felt much better on the back half this year. But the overall time was slower, which is disappointing.

The run is really 6.5 miles, not 6.7.

2011: 59:38 (9:10/mile)
2012: 1:00:23 (9:17/mile)

learn how to run faster one day

Did the weird normatec leg massagers, which actually felt kind of nice. And then hung out for a minute to watch Lance finish. I think he beat the whole field in the Half by 20 minutes or so.


Not a great performance for me, but no terrible, and probably about what I deserved given my recent training.

I have done this event each year since it's inception, and this year was interesting. Obviously Rev3 and Lance's involvement raised the profile of the race by about a million percent. This in turn made for a much stronger field - I finished in the top 20 overall last year but was around #45 this year.

And it was an extremely organized, well-run, and well-supported event. But it definitely had a different feel to it: in past year's it had been a pretty low-key, cancer fundraiser event with a very cool charity vibe to it. This year's event was much more professional and had the added hype of Lance racing. Not saying this was good or bad, but it was... different. I will likely do it again next year, but only if they avoid the same weekend as Seagull Century (a favorite event I was sad to miss this year because I signed up for Half Full before knowing the date of Seagull).