Pigman Long Course Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

For whatever reason, this swim felt really difficult. I wasn't going that fast, so I know that wasn't it, unless it was long. Several others made the same comment so maybe there was a current or something. Anyway, I was pretty happy with this swim overall, other than a few navigation errors. I did a good job of working around slower traffic and swimming a consistent pace the entire swim. My earplug fell out of my right ear halfway through, and I'm not a huge fan of swimming without earplugs, but I don't think it slowed me down.

Navigate a little better...

There is a fairly large hill to run up into the transition area, so that adds to the time. Other than that, things mostly went smoothly until I was about to grab my bike and go. At that point all of the sudden I felt really light-headed and in fact almost blacked out. That's never happened to me before in a race. So I just stood there taking deep braths for 30-45 sec. and eventually felt fine again and headed out on the bike.

Not get light headed, I probably just ran up the hill a little too hard...

I had really good legs from the get-go and passed a ton of people throughout the ride. Nice thing about being a slower swimmer and starting in the last wave I guess ;)...I hit almost all of the hills really well and handled the wind well. I didn't get quite enough hydration in during the ride, eve though it wasn't super hot, and I think that hurt me some on the run. Heed was the sport drink, and it tastes horrible to me, especially when warm, so it was tough to choke that stuff down. The last 7 or 8 miles have some tough hills, so my pace slowed a little there, but I still felt pretty good coming into transition.

Hydrate a little more and maybe take in a few more calories.

Nothing to see here, pretty solid transition for me. I didn't really have any major problems. The length of the transition area contributes a lot to the time.

Nothing

I felt good the first 3 miles or so, and I was clipping off 7:15-7:30 miles, but these miles are more downhill than up. Once I was out in the exposed areas of the course, I started feeling really warm. I tried to drink a lot at every aid station, but I probably should have carried a bottle as well. I started having stomach discomfort about 8 miles in, and the last 3 miles or so were particularly slow, but still a decent time. The course was a tenth or two long. Ran it in for a 7 minute HIM PR :)

Carry a bottle

I felt pretty ruined right after the race, so I got a massage and had water and a can of root beer. I found my wife's teammates and waited for her to get finished up. She did a great job on her leg! I realized I won an age group award, never thought that would happen in a long course race when I first started doing these, so stuck around to get it before driving home in a crazy rain storm.


Lack of taper and high training volume. Poor hydration on the bike and rough. Tough swim.


As always Pigman was a blast and one of my favorite races to do!