LongHorn Triathlon Festival - Half Iron - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

After chewing seaweed for the first 100 m or so, I found a rythym. Unfortunately, I also found that my wave was gone and I was swimming essentially alone. I'm just so damn slow. The pink hatted ladies (3 min later start) began to catch me by the first turn. I only found someone as slow as me near the end of the back stretch and kind of drafted off of him. I knew I had the strength and stamina, but not the speed. I also think the warmup swim from the day before set me back a little, as I was sore at the beginning and a little fatigued. BUT, I made my goal of under an hour. Before making the final turn I was dreading my time, and was really happy to have made it under goal.

Just have to keep practicing technique for speed. I know I can swim faster. Maybe more upper-body workouts, too.

I thought this was a good transition for me. I ran all the way to the bike, found it fine (easy when there aren't many), saw Jill (Texmom) heading out (she passed me on the swim, too) and got going.

Maybe learn that shoe on bike thing or skip socks, but otherwise, I'm OK with this transition.

This was a great course. Very fair. The hills were a non-factor, except for the last one which was unexpectedly long (also the killer running hill). I rode a good ride, but maxed out my gears too often. Maybe I need an upgrade? Some 27 y.o. chick from Austin hung with me for probably 30 miles. We took turns passing each other and finally talked on the final couple climbs. She had a regular bike with no aero bars, but younger legs.

just get more time in the saddle doing intervals and strengthening my legs. I could feel the repetition in my knees over all those miles and had to change positions a lot. I wonder how much a tri-bike would improve things?

Another ok transition. I had already planned on popping some Ibuprofen, so that took a few seconds, and I had a Gu on the way out, but overall, not bad.

Have the ibuprofen set out so I wouldn't have to dig for it.

Well, this is where I lost it. The heat and humidity wore me down (not that I'm alone in this category). Over this course, the two relatively fruitless pit stops didn't add too much time, either. It was just hard. I watered, hydrated, and sponged at every opportunity. I only ate 2 gels, though and just couldn't eat any pretzles or chips. Perhaps I should have. My tooth was hurting a bit, too, but I didn't think much about that at the time. I essentially joined the crowds walking up the hills and running, to the best my legs would allow, down. Aid stations were plentiful and great, but still seemed too far apart (even though they weren't).

What could I do? I'd already trained and done Olympics in similar weather conditions, so you'd think I could have handled it better, but that just didn't happen with this one.

Here's where it got a bit scary. I felt ok for the first five minutes or so. Cold towel, water, mist tent, etc., but when I went back to the line to cheer on Jill, I nearly fainted. I got dizzy and had to hold on to the fence for support. I basically felt really drunk. I wandered around in a daze, visited with BTers, family and other Austin friends, but didn't really know what I was doing. Finally, I took a seat just next to the med tent. I strongly considered dropping in for an IV, and probably should have. I have no idea how long it took to regain any sense of normalcy.


Heat, hills, humidity.


This was a great event, despite the weather. On a cooler day, I think I could have handled the run course.