Ironman 70.3 Steelhead - Triathlon

This swim was rougher than it looked like it was going to be. Waves were coming toward us at about 30 degrees from North-Northwest. It was sometimes hard to breathe to the left (my better breathing side) because of the waves. It was definitely "against the current/waves."

Water was amazingly clear and felt great. Temperature was great with a wetsuit. Very little contact in this swim in stark contrast to Muncie a month ago where I felt like I had been used as a punching bag after the first 200 meters.

I feel like I didn't have the performance that I should have. Just didn't swim fast enough. Never felt bad or out of control. Just swam too slow.

Swim faster. Start swimming at age 6 instead of 36.

Long transition area.

I need to learn to push harder and run faster in transition. Jogging through transition is a bad idea.

I had a great bike. Instructions from coach were to not go as hard as Muncie and save something for the run. I haven't actually looked at my power numbers for this race but I suspect that they would be close to Muncie but metered out in a much smoother fashion. I knew I was working but never at the point where things got too hard.

I pumped my tires about 10 PSI higher than I usually do and I could feel the difference. The bike seemed to roll easier but I do think that it might have been a bit harsher as well. A pretty good trade off as far as I am concerned.

Drank two bottles of my standard drink mixture (about 800 calories) plus probably in the area of 1.5 bottles of water. I noticed that when I had about 45 minutes left in my ride that I still had a lot of sports drink left so I drank a lot more in the last 45 minutes than usual. I felt a little full and sloshy coming off of the bike.

As we were riding, it was clearly getting hotter. I used probably half of every water bottle that I grabbed to douse my jersey and shorts and helmet for some evaporative cooling. Never too early to start doing this during a warm race.

I think I could have pushed 5-10 watts more and gone a little bit faster without destroying my legs for the run. I am still trying to find the right balance of pushing on the bike and having good legs left for the run. I'll get it down some day.

It would be hard to do it too much faster with the length, density and overall layout of this transition area. I sure didn't lolly-gag around.

Still didn't have quite the run that I wanted to have but it went much better than the last one. Still working on that balance I was talking about above.

I started the run feeling reallly full and did not take any fluids at the first aid station, just ice and water to douse my uniform. It was getting hot! I also felt like I had taken too much nutrition in the last 45 minutes of the bike and decided that I likely wouldn't need any sugar during the run so I skipped the cola, which is my usual go-to run fluid in favor of water. This worked fine for the first 7 miles or so, but at around mile 8 I started to get that dismal, doom and gloom, I don't want to do this any more feeling. Started taking in cola at that point and I think it salvaged my race. My pace dropped from miles 8 to 10.5 but not too bad. Lesson learned.

It had gotten pretty darn hot by this time and my main focus was keeping cool. Ice in the front and back of the tri-suit at every aid station. Cold water over head and jersey. Water to drink, just a mouthful or two at each aid station and cola at the last several as above.

Cola earlier. Stick to the plan!

Run faster :)

Walked around. Quick dip in the lake. Saw my position in relation to the field and knew that even if it rolled down I wasn't going to Austria. It was almost three hours of driving to get home so I high-tailed it out of there.


I have been reducing my run mileage noticably in favor of getting stronger on the bike. It is working. The bike is coing along nicely but I have probably sacrificed just a little bit off of my top-end running capability. It should be easy enough to regain with some increase in volume.


Great race as usual. Well organized. Well run. Great competion. Super volunteers and nice crow support on the run.

A race that is definitely worth doing.

I want to make sure that I mention my coach, Steve Johnson, AKA DarkHorseTri. He has taken me from a guy who wanted to break 5:00 for a HIM to a guy that is disappointed that he didn't break 4:40 and that has a goal of getting to 4:30. Steve is really good at what he does and had made me a much more complete and better triathlete. I was mentally thanking him for all of the work on the bike while out there on Sunday. This is the first time that I remember thinking that I was really prepared for the bike (while I was out riding it).