TryCharleston Half - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I suck at open water sighting! Especially when I dont practice it. I've been working a lot on my swim and took off 4 minutes from last year. I could've been faster had I not been zig zagging back and forth throughout the course. The course was fairly open and I didnt experience any congestion.

Practice sighting, even in the pool!

Felt badly, but got frustrated with wet suit strippers and took off when they couldnt get my arms free. Wasted about 20 seconds watching them tring to get my arms out of the wetsuit before realizing I could do it faster.

Practice taking my wetsuit off myself.

Flat and fast even though the wind wasnt as helpful as in past years. Had a great friend offer me his 808/1080 combo, and they really came in handy. At the first hard right turn after seeing the open male sprint tri guys coming back the wrong way, I witnessed a guy going down and decided to take every turn with extreme caution. There was sand/gravel on some of the turns and along with wet roads, made this a nervous bike segment.

Only ended up drinking one bottle of Ironman Powerbar Perform and two gels on the bike course. Legs were aching as with a flat windy course, there really is never a break in spinning the legs. There was a short stretch around miles 45-52 where the wind was with us and I could pick up the pace and not feel it too badly. Things slowed down upon entering the park area, as there was traffic and turns before heading into T2.


Nothing. Saw a few crashes and took it easy at the turns. Cars were great and didnt have any issues with aggressive drivers.

Feet were frozen and I had to get my socks and shoes out of a bag before putting them on.

Felt great on this run. Kept a sub 7:30 pace and never felt winded. Huge puddles on the running path sucked and I tried going around some of them. That is, until my Kinvara 3 got sucked off my foot in 4 inches of mud and I had to go back to retrieve it. Ran most of the second half of the run with some buddies and we pushed each other to the finish. One of those buddies twisted his ankle in a deep pothole covered by water on the run path. I think it cost him an age group placing which really sucked. Any chance the course couldve been inspected and dangers marked before throwing us out there?

Just run through the puddles.

Hung out with buddies at the finish and tried to get warm. No messages this year?


The elements on the course made for a more cautious approach.


No race shirts, a crappy hat that says nothing about the race distance we were doing, no post race messages, took forever for age group awards to be handed out. I'm not a difficult person to please, but this years race seemed way off from the past standards.