Patriot Half Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The water was fairly choppy compared to what I'm used to, but I didn't feel especially overwhelmed by it. Felt good for the first half, but my arms definitely felt a lot weaker once I was headed back to shore. Despite trying it out a few times this year, I really think the full sleeved suit tires me out. Still a PR for me for a HIM swim!

I'll use my sleeveless suit for the remainder of the season...

I was treating this race as a long training day, rather than an A race, so I didn't really feel compelled to push myself in the transitions. Had some Clif Shot Bloks and water, changed and headed out to bike.

I'm sure I could have made this faster, I suppose I'll be able to test that theory at Timberman in August where I actually will be pushing myself...

I hadn't felt very prepared for the bike coming into this, since I haven't done a lot of long rides. As a result, I was expecting to only average 17 mph, so here, things went better than expected. I took it relatively easy the entire time, since I knew the run was going to be rough regardless, so I wasn't going to burn myself out too much before that. There were a couple of sections near the water that were fairly gusty, and therefore a bit sketchy with my 808s, but it wasn't too bad.

Not much at this point. I'm hoping to be able to push it more for Timberman, but this went better than expected. I'll have to have my seat adjusted or changed at some point though, since it was pretty uncomfortable by the end...

As with T1, I wasn't rushing through transitions. This one required us to circle our bikes all the way around too, so that added time...

Given that the longest run I've done all year was a bit over 8M, I was feeling woefully unprepared for this distance, especially after swimming and biking. As a result, I tried my best to maintain an easy pace. I felt great for the first 4M, to the point where I started to think that maybe it wasn't going to be so bad after all. Unfortunately, I started falling apart quickly after that. By the 6M aid station, I was walking out of them. Not a big deal, but my pace had plummeted and I was really struggling. In past races, once I've reached this point, I'll stop and walk for a longer section than I'd generally like to. In this case, once I hit mile 9, I walked for a half mile. Luckily, as before, it helped, and while I was still very slow, it wasn't quite as painful. I even brought it down to a 9 min/mile for the final mile and the two people I knew at the finish said I looked like I finished strong. Nice that I bounced back a bit, but would be nice not to crash and burn halfway through in the first place.

I need a lot more mileage under my belt before Timberman...

Changed into dry clothes and hung out with Mike. It was great having him there! He made sure to cheer me on at every transition and the finish. He also took over driving, which was nice on the way home, since I was tired.


I'm not ready to race this distance. It wasn't one of my A races though, so I didn't mind...


I liked this race a lot. It was beautiful weather, and a great course, which almost made me sad this wasn't my A race!