Whirlpool Steelhead 70.3 Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

My wave went off at 7:26. I lined up on the front of the pier and was ready to jump. I wasn't scared at all about getting jumped on. I really didn't want to get behind any slower swimmers than I had to. Horn went off and we jumped.

My swim went well. Right before the start, some girl mentioned that there were 16 buoys total. I think that I counted up to 4 and then stopped because it seemed like it would take forever. It honestly seemed to take forever to get to the final orange turn buoy. The waves made the swim interesting and the fact that we were swimming south meant that the sun was rising right into our eyes making it difficult to find the buoys at time. I managed to keep a young girl in a yellow cap near me at all times and she actually yelled 'Good Swim' to me as we were getting out of the water.

Swim time includes about a 400 yard run up the sand to the cobblestones where the timing pad was.

The water was warm and I almost got too hot in my full-sleeve wetsuit. I know that the buoyancy factor definitely helped me, but I might consider not wearing it. Or maybe try warming up beforehand so that I know what type of temperature to expect.

There was a long run from the beach through the expo staging and lots of spectators through a chute to the transition area. I would say that it was around 2/10ths of a mile. Plus, the transition area was HUGE.

I had issues getting my wetsuit off my ankles, but I've come to expect that. Got everything together on fairly well and ran off with my bike.

Not much. I saw a lot of people walking the area from the beach to the transition area. I know that I passed the girl I was swimming with at this point. I know that my heartrate was high getting out of the water, but after just a short jog, it had come back down.

First 10 miles were great on the bike. I think that it was mostly flat or downhill on this section. It felt easy anyway. Around mile 10, I felt a slight twinge behind my right knee and started worrying that it meant that my bike wasn't fitted correctly. Luckily, it worked itself out by mile 18 or so, but I think that I might still mention it to the guys at All3 when I take it in soon.

I can't say much about the bike because I don't really remember much of it. I know that I've never seen so much corn in my life. The aid stations were great and the volunteers out there were awesome. I went through tons of fluids because it was getting fairly warm. I had 3 gels - one around mile 20, the second around mile 40 and the last at mile 52 or so.

It was definitely crowded out on the course, but I never saw any intentional drafting. With this said, I also only saw the marshall out there once and I spoke to some people that never saw them. I think that big races such as this HAVE to be officiated better. Around mile 35 or so, I picked up 3 or 4 races and over the next 13 miles or so we played passing games. The girl in red kept saying 'Coming up on your left'. After about 10 miles of this, she just laughed and I told her that I knew she was there every time and that she didn't have to keep calling it. I eventually dropped her, but it was funny that we were right there together.

By mile 50, I was ready for the ride to be over. My saddle was hurting me and I knew that I still had a 13 mile run to go. Last 6 miles couldn't go by fast enough.


I've spent the last 2 months really working on my bike. I dropped almost 14 minutes off of my bike split from Gulf Coast in May and Steelhead was definitely a harder course. I think that eventually I can get down to a 2:30:xx, but I'll take every bit of improvement that I can get. I'm happy with my bike, but I think that I still need to figure out what exactly I need to do for nutrition.

I was happy to be off the bike, but I knew that my legs were going to be tired after working so hard. I think that my transition time was decent considering how large the transition area was. Changed out shoes and put on visor. Carried 2 gels and race number and headed out.

Nothing. I can't recall anything that would have made me faster.

This was definitely the most mental run that I've ever had to do. I was tired coming off my bike and I had to tell myself to just think of it as a mile-at-a-time run. It didn't help much that there were two young girls (volunteers??) at about the .5 mark yelling "You're almost there. Only like 12.5 more miles. Yeah!" I mean, who taught them how to be supportive???

First 1.5 mile took you down a gravel path, turn-around and then up a hill to the highway. The you had a second turnaround and you headed towards the town. I know that the hill up to the highway got a lot of people to walk, but I just kept telling myself to keep running because once you start walking, it's hard to motivate yourself to get back running. I saw the guy finisher coming back towards us when I hit the 2 mile mark.

And then we hit the first bridge. Damn those bridges. I haven't read other's race reports yet but I'm guessing that those bridges got a lot of people down. I tried to think positive and tell myself that there was a downhill once I got up to the top, but it was definitely physically and mentally hard. In total, I think that there were 3 bridges that we crossed, but it might have been 4.

After the last bridge going out, we ran through the harbor club and a business section and then hit a neighborhood for mile 6 - 8. The BIG turnaround was right before mile 7 and I swear that was the LONGEST mile in the entire race. I passed 2 guys running together and I heard them sharing the same sentiment as me. The heat was definitey getting to me and I started getting stomach cramps during mile 9. Luckily, it was just gas and it didn't stop me from running. I started walking the water stops at mile 10 because I was really afraid that I wasn't getting enough fluids in and so I would drink a cup of water and a cup of gatorade and pour ice down my tri suit. I think that this decision helped me to survive the rest of the run.

After the last waterstop, the last mile was a breeze. It took us back down the gravel/dirt path and through the chute to the finish. Crowd support was great running down the chute.

I will never complain about running 9 min/miles at the end of a half-ironman, but I think that I can be faster. I have been really down on my running lately, so I think that more hills interspersed in my run training would have helped on this course.

Other than that, order up some clouds and light mist to cover me throughout the run. :)

Grabbed bottle of water and got some gatorade. Walked around for a little bit and then got in line for some of the free food. I sat at a table trying to eat, but wasn't able to get much down. My legs were already hurting and I checked out the prelminary race results. I knew that I hadn't come close enough for a 70.3 slot so I headed back over to transition area and loaded up my stuff. I talked to the girl next to me for a little while and then walked the .75 to 1 mile back to my car.

Drove the 1.5 hours from Benton Harbor back to Coldwater where I was staying. Stopped and got a strawberry milkshake from Steak-n-Shake. It was so unbelievably good. When I got to Coldwater, we took my bike off the car and it had a flat front tire. I don't know if I got it from hitting some of the potholes and it caused a slow leak or if I ran over something while taking my bike back to my car after the race. I'm just happy that I didn't have to pull over during the race to fix it!


The heat? Not much else. This is my second Half-Ironman and it's a PR by about 14 minutes. I can't complain about limiters when I feel like I had the best race I could have.


I'm so happy I did Steelhead. It is an awesome race. Really well organized and a nice course. The roads were a little rough for me, but the girl I was talking to explained that it these were about the best that you could hope for up in the North. I thought that swimming in Lake Michigan was awesome and that the bike course was beautiful. The race was definitely not an easy one, but it was fun to challenge myself. I will definitely put Steelhead on my list of races to do in the future.