Ironman 70.3 Buffalo Springs Lake - Triathlon

just took it easy. Focused on enjoying the sunrise, the lake, the scenery and gliding. Also tried to go wide but straight.
Garmin says: 1.22 miles. Remembered to start the silly thing, but forgot to hit the button coming out of the water. - Overall a pretty good swim, and a beautiful sunrise over the lake. I really like being out there at sunrise, just don't like to do it by myself.

Caught some feet once, but the lake is just too murky to follow anyone for any distance.

Perhaps train for the race? Swim lots more. Perhaps some speed work. Just be in better shape

For the shape I am in, I executed well.

Took it easy so my HR would not be sky high approaching the steep climb out of T1.

I went about six steps past the mount line. The guy next to me had problems, but I was just past him so no problem for me. The chute is very narrow. Perhaps even going farther would be a good idea.

This could have been my best T1 at this race. Taking a bit of time works way better than leaving T1 out of breath. - Remember to hit Garmin button coming out of water and out of Transition on bike.

Knowing how undertrained I am, and working a plan, I took it pretty easy. That's hard to do when everyone is passing you, but I tried to stick to riding pretty easy. The compact crank was awesome on this course with the steep climbs. Decided to take it easy in transition so that my HR wasn't high on climb out of T1 - That worked! Plus I rode the first two hills the day before and figured out gearing and where I would stand. And I'm now training at 5,000 ft with hills. I wasn't speedy, but with the training I've got and the new gears the hills were pretty manageable. Overall, with only one month of training to average almost 17 mph with the wind and hills, I'm pretty pleased. Speedometer chose today to take the day off. Stopped once to pee. Stopped once to give a guy a tube. Absolutely loved the tail wind coming in on the last leg - Garmin said I was running about 20 - 21. Max speed 39.6 Garmin says ave moving speed 17, but does not have the first two hills.
Forgot to hit the button coming out of T1 for about two miles, including the first two climbs out of T1.
Beautiful morning. The rains stopped just about 5:30, so mostly the roads were clear, but puddles in places. Nice and cool, probably only about 75 degrees at the end of the bike. Two places we had to ride through water deeper than a few inches. No dust, fields wet, but the breeze was pretty noticeable. I guess it was 15 mph or so.

Train more. Think I need to figure out how to ride with more power

Pretty efficient, Walked out to prep for an easy run. The guy in front of me stopped in the middle of the narrow chute at the dismount line. Could not blow past him. Probably lost 4 seconds in a 7 hour race. no great loss, good thing I was paying attention though.

I'm happy with this transition.

Well, as I suspected this is where it got tough. My longest run to date is 8 miles. With basically one month of training, I think I did ok, and it appears today (Monday) that I didn't actually hurt myself, although hurting is what my legs and feet are doing - it all appears to be muscular.
run/walk 3:1 and pretty much a slightly sub10 min pace for the first three miles. Had to stop and move my chip to the other leg, it was biting my ankle for some reason.
Followed my plan to take a good warm up on mile one. Walked several times in the first five minutes. After that I felt like running, so I stepped it up to just sub 10 min pace. I figured I'd be plodding a lot later, and to use different muscles I'd go ahead and run. Walked the big hill just past 3 miles. Walked the second big hill at 4.3 miles. Then the 'flat' out and back, pretty much was able to maintain a 10 min pace, but extended my walk to 1:03 for each four min stretch. 2:30/1:30

Just past mile 8 the fatigue started setting in. I was pretty good with gels, gatoraide, and cliff blocks all the way along. Took all my own nutrition after last year's experience. Took good advantage of the water and ice on the course. hung a wet paper towel out of the back of my hat, down my neck. best thing ever. After the turn around at mile 6.2 the wind was in our face and cooling quite nicely.
Long walk at mile 9 - walked the whole four minutes. Walked the downhills now as well as the uphills. Knees were hurting, especially the right. Feet hurting. Coming into the park, I was thinking, What have I learned at IM that will help me now? So at the mile 10 aide station I sat down, visited with volunteers and rested my feet and legs. That helped, but by this point I was well beyond my training. Tried various strides to see if I could figure out how to run and not hurt my knee. Stopped to stretch a little and that helped some. Stretched then walked most of the last mile, but knee felt good enough to run the last 1/2 or so.

Garmin says: from mile 1-9 ave pace was about 12 - 13 min/mile. At mile 10 it went to 16min/mi. That tells me what I need to do with my long runs. Like maybe do them?

Overall, for only a month of training, not so bad. I actually was doing fairly well, I thought until the last three to four miles. And overall, I'm pretty pleased.




This is starting to sound like a pattern: Train more, but for the run this is absolutely true. I simply was not ready to run 13.1 miles. For my training I thought I did well. Plan executed fairly well, and it went about as I expected. I had forgotten about hurting knees. But I learned that stretching the inside of my legs helps alleviate the outside knee pain.

The post race massage was fabulous. I had stopped by and got worked on the day before the race. I think he loosened up my calves, and I had absolutely no problems with calf tightness. Think because I paid the day before they took a little extra time with me after the race. In any case the girl who worked on me really helped loosen me up, and knees don't hurt.

Sat in the lake a bit, and had recovery drink while waiting for massage. Walked around a tiny bit. Feet really hurt


Lack of run training.


We started just about 10 minutes late because of early morning storms which moved the buoys around a bit.

This is an awesome venue. Lots of variety on both the run and the bike. Aide stations well stocked, and there was even ice between a couple of the aide stations. There's plenty of challenge to be had here as well. Some hills, some flat, some wind - Something for everyone.

The Greer's put on a very well organized race.