Redman Half Distance Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I ended up in the first wave since I qualified in the Long Course Nat'l Championship. A first for me so had a little anxiety. Probably took it too easy on the swim as I was 6 minutes slower then my swim at Galveston in April. was swimming over almost every small marker ball between the bouys. Had to avoid several errant swimmers but no more then usual. Got one punch in the goggles from one of those throw your hands around swimmers. Got out of the water seeing 40 minutes on the watch and knew I had some catching up to do on the bike.

I am so frustrated with my swimming. The improvements in the pool are not transferring to the OWS. I thought for sure my time would be better then the 35:00 I had at Galveston. Just need to keep working on it over the winter.

Was a long run to T1 since the lake was so low so took advantage and ran pretty fast to transition but then dicked around getting my helmet and glasses on. Think someone had knocked my helmet off and put it back because the straps were messed up. Run out of T1 and on bike was good.

Not going to worry about it at this distance.

My expectations were much higher for this after riding at 23.7mph at River Cities a month earlier. I expected a min of 22 mph. The plan was to ride the first 20 miles at 140 bpm HR then push to 145 the rest of the way. I simply had no muscular endurance to get my HR up after the first half. Very similar to Playtri Festival when I had raced CapTexas the week before. To add to the misery I had a pulled core muscle in my side from mountain biking the wednesday before. This made the aero position uncomfortable but not bad enough to inhibit perfromance. I saw my goal of sub 5:00 fading as my ave speed continued to decrease and was calculating what pace my run needed to be to get there before I hit T2.

Don't race the week before, period.

after getting blisters going sockless on a few trial runs in the new shoes I decided to wear socks. This added some time as did moving the guys bike and wetsuit across the rack from me so I could get my bike racked.

nothing,glad I went with the socks.

I calculated I needed better then 1:38 to get under 5:00. I do this fairly easily in the heat as standalone so I thought it would be achievable. Felt great for the first 4 as I averaged 7:15 for those but then the wheels came flying off. Not sure if it was just the heat, the lack of hydration, or tired legs from the half marathon the week before. found myself walking thru the aid stations in the last half of the race. Saw one more guy in my age group with about 1/2 mile to go so i was able to muster enough to pick my pace up to 8:41 for the last mile and put him behind me.

No racing the week before, better hydration on the bike.

really wanted an ice bath but they had none so ate and drank a little then went back to car to get my chair and cooler of beer to watch my other friends come in.


Poor decision trying to put tough workouts in close to race. Poor hydration on the bike may have screwed me on the run.


Very well run race. Pavement absolutely sucked. Walk from parking was very long. Volunteers were fantastic. Although I was really disappointed in not getting under 5:00 I was surprised to see I had finished 4th in AG. Some consolation.