Bone Island Tri - Half Iron Course - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

This was my second half and coincidentally my second half with Setup events. They seem to have a knack for setting up difficult swims. The weather did not help the racers at all either. The water was rough all week leading into the swim. On race day the conditions were 3-5 foot swells. The start was a wade out to swim depth. About 50 yards further our swimmers made a left turn and swam straight about 0.8 miles. For some reason the organizers chose to place the bouy line in/very close to the wave break. I got pounded by breaking waves and had a hard time sighting. I don't have any open water experience though so my lack of experience hurt me. After the 0.8 straight away swimmers made a left turn and swam straight offshore into waves and current for 0.2 before turning ack towards the beach. After a last left racers swam parallel to the beach for a few hundred yards. In this part of the course two lines developed. Slightly further out the water depth appeared to be nice. In the line I ended up in the depth went fro 5-6 feet to 18 inches and back a few times. Swimmers also had to navigate around some abondoned pilings before the ast turn. As I wrote, Setup is good a setting up difficult swims.Had conditions been ideal I'm sure it would have been nice.

Need to learn to sight. In my last half my swim split was 38 minutes in a flat lake with only a little current. This swim took 54 minutes.

I went from 10 minute my first tri to 4 in this one. My only improvement unfortunately

Gotta get faster

I actually improved my bike split in this race. I was surprised by the wind though. 28 miles of headwind is pretty demoralizing. Its fun on the way back though. I started to develop a cramp at mile 40 that nagged me the rest of the day. The road was mostly rough with some gouges/potholes. Riding in the aero position got uncomfortable for sure. I spent more time than I wanted upright. The only thing Setup should have managed better was the turn around. Off duty police had been hired to stop traffic for the cyclists. The method they used was to bunch cyclists up and let them through as a group. I spent about 5 minutes waiting. Since I was not racing for anything other than myself I didn't care too much but that needs to be improved upon. The shoulder of the road was very narrow in places. Riders definitely had to get into the traffic lane to pass. I saw a fair amount of drafting too. Overall the roads were poor.

Not much. Riding is not my fave event but to get faster I guess I'll do some group rides

Cramping became very evident when I dismounted. Left quad was tight but when I went to stretch I felt a charley horse in my hamstring. Ugh Ohh

This was my most disappointing part of the race because it is usually my strongest. In the last half iron I did I ran 1:59 versus 2:27 in this race. My training was hampered by a hamstring injury that I got on the very same sidewalks in Key West on the last leg of the 2012 Ragnar. I wish that the run course could have circled the island or something. The route was too repetitive too exposed to the wind. Runners had to collect bracelets to verify completion of the distance. Weird. Towards the end of the race I just wanted off the course

Injury prevention

pizza, beer


Undertrained. Weather


MY perception of the race was that the organizers had a hard time getting permits. The proposed course seemed to change over the months prior to the race mostly effecting the run. The side walks were OK near Higgs beach were they were very wide. The last 4 or so miles was run on typical 3 foot wide sidewalks that were not closed to pedestrians. The water sponser provided what had to be the worst water I have ever tasted, The 4 people I went to the race with all agreed it tasted like bacon. It felt good poured over the head though. If the weather had been nice I could see this being a great destination race. If the weather is typically bad in January I dont think I would race this one again. Oh I would train harder too.