Victoria International Half Ironman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I had a really good swim, I ended up seeding myself relatively high compared to where I seeded myself in races last year and it paid off as I had less traffic to swim through. I ended up swimming with a pack of about 5 other guys for the first lap and we were making some pretty good time and our navigation was pretty good. As we hit the second lap I pulled away with another guy for a bit. The pace was quick, but comfortable and we ended up swimming past some of the people who had gone out too hard. As we were coming back in I figured we would be around 33 mins, but when I saw my watch I was pretty surprised with the time. All in all a great swim for me who at this time last year was just getting comfortable with swimming in open water.

Nothing, this is my best swim in a race that I have had so far.

Decent transition, someone had thrown there stuff over my bike shoes though so I had to move there wetsuit off my stuff before I could head out.

Learn to have shoes attached to bike.

I went out with the plan to take the first lap easy and then to push a little more on the last three lasp. My nutrition plan was to take in only gels and gatorade and water. The first lap was good, although I got into a routine where I just kind of spaced out and forgot to drink any water for the first 30 mins. I finally remembered to have a gel and water after I passed a guy who was eating a bar which reminded me to take in some nutrition. At that point I was already 30 mins behind on my nutrition plan(not good.) The next 2 laps I pushed pretty hard, playing leap frog with this guy who I had been chatting to in transition before the race. He would take off on the flats, but he had trouble with any hills so I kept catching him on the hills, he finally took off towards the end of the 3rd lap. The last lap was alright although it was a little slower than the previous 2 laps. I tried to make up for my early nutrition problems, but it wasn't happening. Still, I ended up passing some people who had gone out too hard at the start, so that was motivating, and proved that my plan of taking the first lap easy was a good idea.

Better nutrition plan, although it didn't really hurt me on the bike, it came back to haunt me on the run.

Not a very fast t2 in retrospect. Should have just grabbed nmy stuff and taken off, but it was slow for some reason. Will have to work on this.

Practice more on my transitions.

Here is where my lack of nutrition came back to bite me. I went out and actually felt pretty good for the first 2 km, I was holding a good comfortable 4:35 km pace, and was looking forward to holding this pace until the end. After I went through the first aid station, I knew I was in trouble, my pace was fading, and I couldn't push to go any faster. I kept slogging along, but I was leaking time per KM like I never have before. I went from running 4:30km's to 5:30 km's almost instantly. I made it through 6 km's at this pace and thought at least if I hang on like this I will beat my PB of 5:17. Then the cramping in my left hamstring and calf hit. So I came up with a new plan of walking 1 minute, running 9 minutes and grabbing what I could from the aid stations. That worked for awhile, but I could not seem to get any extra energy back, so I ended up doing walk 1 run 5. at the lowest point, I thought of dropping out, but I wanted to finish no matter what, so I stuck to my plan, walk 1 run 5. Finally, with about 2 km's to go, I felt a little better and ended up jogging the last 2km home however painful it was.

Like I said on the bike, better nutrition plan. On the plus side, I tried something new in a B race, and it didn't work, so now I can plan for my A race keeping this in mind.

walk around for 5 mins, just to keep the legs loose, then hit the lake for 10 mins just sitting in the cold water.


Poor nutrition plan, and maybe lack of sleep, although I generally avg not very much sleep the night before any races.


For a first time race this was really well done. I would recommend this series of races to anyone contemplating doing one. They still have 2 more on the table, A race in Sooke, and a race in Vancouver.