Gulf Coast Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The swim was actually really rough. The day before the water was like a lake with very little waves...so it was a rude awakening to see white caps on race morning. Our wave was the 4th or 5th to go off...so I did quite a bit of navigating around the slower swimmers that got started before me. This time is about what I expected for the conditions. I probably could have been down around the 35 minutes mark with calmer waters.

Nothing...can't change the weather.

I took it pretty easy through transitions. I knew that rushing wasn't going to help me in the end.

Nothing.

The bike went extremely well for the first 50 miles. I actually had a nice tailwind on the way out and not much of head-wind on the way back. Then I made the turn on Front Beach Road for the last 6 miles...TERRIBLE. A storm was rolling in and it started raining pretty hard. With the rain came brutal winds. I was averaging around 21.3 MPH on my garmin when I made that turn...and ended at 20 MPH after those last 6 miles. I pushed it as much as I could to get finished...but I was really concerned about taking a spill. There were several people I passed bloodied on the side of the road from falling in the crosswinds. In the end...I am extremely happy with my time. I just wish I could have gotten to this time without spending as much energy on those last 6 miles as I did.

Nothing.

Took it nice and easy.

This run was brutal. The weather was about as good as it could have been. If it had gotten much hotter I probably would have struggled a lot more than I did. I came off the bike running 8:00 miles like I wanted for the first two miles. It was at this point that I realized how much those last six miles on the bike had taken out of me. I slowed down a bit over the next 6 or 7 miles to around a 9:00 pace. At mile 9 the wheels really fell off. Until mile 9 I was just briefly walking aid stations and keeping a pretty steady pace...even if it was slower than I had planned. The sun came out and I got extremely hot and mentally broke down. I walked/ran the last 4 miles as hard as I could make myself. The course was actually 13.5 miles and every mile marker was .1 short...so it was pretty demoralizing to think you are going to finish at mile 13.0 on your garmin and have to run that extra 0.5 miles to get to the finish. I managed to keep trucking and get to the line.

Better nutrition on the bike.

Hung out with my wife and mom and waited on my dad to come in. He finished in just under seven hours and I was extremely excited to see him coming.


The wind.


This race was extremely well organized and the volunteers were great. Everyone was very helpful and friendly the entire race.