White Lake Half - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Well this could have gone much worse for me. I have been battling an ear infection or something for the past month. Often a get a sense of vertigo when I get out of the water. This was by far my biggest concern going into the race. I have used ear plugs and brought them with me as a safety precaution. Well guess who put on the wetsuit and started the race without putting them in? GULP! I realized this about 5 minutes into the swim start and freaked out. What if I got sick? What if I was too lightheaded to get on the bike? Is a DNF possible? Well there wasn't much I could do but try to swim and see what happens. Two or three times I thought I was getting nauseous but kept pushing myself.

Our wave had about 75 atheltes. I had two goals for the swim. 1. Remain calm but fight in the start 2. Try to draft. Well I picked out a big boy in my wave and started a few feet behind him. Oops. He was slow so I missed the draft line going out but I held my own in the fight. A few other times I would catch someone and try to stay with them but was never successful in drafting much.

The water was clear as day and only about 8-10 feet deep (if that). You could see the bottom the entire time which gave me some comfort that if I needed to stop. I felt like I sighted just fine. I got off course a little bit when I rounded the buoys. Maybe next time I will pay attention to the swim lay out.

The group behind me didn't catch me until the last buoy and then I was a bit more successful in drafting.

The swim ended with having to climb up a ladder and run about 50m down the pier and then snake another 50m to transition. Once I got onto the pier, I took an extra moment to assess my coordination...CHECK..I was seeing straight. Then I started jogging down the pier tearing off the wetsuit. Once I realized how long the run was then I picked up the pace into T1.

I would estimate that I came out of the water close to 36 minutes. I had to wait to get up the ladder and then the run to T1 took at least a minute.

More time in the pool? Learn to draft? Wear earplugs? I felt good on the swim and felt that I could keep going if needed.

Well that was a long time in transition...but transition was really big. Winner had 1:58 T1 and average T1 was 3:28 so I don't feel bad at all. I was able to get the top of the wetsuit off during the jog to T1 and I popped it off the ankles. I had a good racking position (on the end) and was about 10 racks into T1. Due to my concern about the temperature, I decided to ride with socks to I had to put them on my wet feet which was a challenge (and first time to ever do that). Got everything and took off running with the bike down the long chute.

Put on my garmin in transition.

I am a fumbling idiot and a spazz on the bike. I got up to speed just fine. I had placed my garmin on my handle bars and went to put it on my wrist when I realized I am not coordinated enough to do that while biking. So I just stuck it in my jersey. Then it beeped at me. Guess who didn't switch to bike mode? Yep. Mistake #2. So my preprogrammed nutrition reminders....gone. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now. I estimated that I could hold at least 20 mph on the course so that meant 3:00/miles and the road was marked every 5 miles so easy math to come up with a nutrtion plan.

Mistake #3. I rode with only 2 bottles. My aerobottle with water and cytomax in the cage. The plan was to take on water at mile 18 & 45 drops. This should work for me. Well I missed the exchange at mile 18. I wasn't confident in handling the tri bike one handed. I had no problem last year with exchanges on the road bike.

So I began to run out of fluid around mile 28-30. At second exchange I knew I didn't have an option. I prepared myself for the exchange but lost confidence and said f*ck it, better play it safe so I completely stopped. And while I was stopped, might as well dump it in my aerobottle. Did the same thing at mile 45. Stopping probably cost me at least 2-3 minutes.

I really don't remember much of the bike course. It was rural NC and not much to look at. The road conditions were good with the exception of about a 10 mile stretch that was brutal. I knew that I am was hammering the bike. I also knew that my legs were tired from not tapering but I was determined to hold 20 mph and really wanted a 2:45 split.

Nutrition was 3.5 gels, powerbar, cytomax and 3.5 bottles of water (735 calories). I dropped two Nuun into the water at mile 35 and that stuff jumpstarts me. However, I tried it again at mile 45 and it became too much for me. I thought I might have drink a bit too much. Probably just needed more calories.



Put on the garmin, learn to control my bike at exchanges, taper? There still room to improve but I can really complain.

Again....long transition to run with the bike. I am fairly certain that looking at other times, T2 included my bathroom break before the run.

I felt good about T2. I had placed my gels and ecaps inside my hat and attached my race belt to it. So I was able to grab it and put everything on once I was running. I questioned if I should change socks (that was the plan) because I could feel some grass and dirt in the sock leftover from the run. I didn't want to stop.

Not much. One day I might care to learn how to jump off my bike but I don't care in a HIM.

I said all along that my race would come down to the run. This is the one area that I need to work on. I simply should be faster. My biggest concern coming out of T2 was that I blew up and fried my legs on the bike. My plan was to take the first 3.5 miles easy as I adapted to running, and then try to slightly pick it up on each addtional lap.

I was a bit shocked by my mile 1 split and even more so by my mile 2 split. My legs were screaming at me. I took 2 e-caps at mile 2 and they kicked in right away. I took a gel at about mile 5 while alternating water and cytomax at each station. I hit the 7 mile turnaround at 55 minutes and knew that a sub 2 hour run was attainable.

I hit the wall at mile 8. I could feel myself slow down on miles 8-10 as I took long walks at the aid stations and grabbed ice towels to cool off. I took a 2 more e-caps to get the body moving. My stride shortened but I was still moving along and knew that I built some cushion in the first 7 miles.

On the second loop I stared at the 11 mile marker and told myself that I was going to test myself when I reached it. I wanted to see if I could actually push myself in a race. At the final turnaround I planned on taking some flat coke but found none...I wanted the caffiene.

At mile 10 I started using the woman ahead of me as a pacer. I was hurting but feeling fine as I reached the 11 mile mark. When I passed her I taunted her a bit to push her and she came with a vengence. We definitely picked it up over those last two miles.

At this juncture I knew sub 2 hours was attainable. I fact, I was fairly certain that I was going to break 5:30 for the race. To make it even better, I caught and passed 2 age groupers on the final 2-3 miles!!!

A few more calories on the bike would help. More tempo/interval running wouldn't hurt. A bigger running base. But I PR'd so I am happy with that.

Well I wanted to die the minute I crossed the finish line. I took a few minutes to gather myself before heading to the food tent. Ran into some friends and chatted a while. Then I went and stood in the lake for about 15 minutes in the cool water. I hung around the event for about an hour chatting and packing up my car before showering and hitting the road. Had to make the trek back to ATL.


Nothing. I beat my SC HIM time by 40 minutes. I felt trained for this race especially since there really wasn't a taper. Maybe next year I will actually learn to swim, bike and run and see how much more time there is to shave off. I really felt competitive and learned what it is like to race a triathlon! I think the HIM distance is perfect for me.


This is an awesome race. The aid stations on the run were placed at perfect distances. My only complaint was they needed more volunteers at a few aid stations (bike)...but that is always a challenge. The volunteers and crowd support were amazing. Set Up puts on great events. The venue for the race is awesome. I hope to come back next year, camp out and make a weekend of it.