New Balance 1/2 Ironman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Swim was 2000m and not 1900m which is the standard Half Iron distance

Swim went really well. It was pretty rough at the beginning but I settled into a good pace and tried to hitch a draft when I could. I got a little off course at one point which probably cost me about 30 secs but all in all this was the best open water swim I've had to date.

Not much. Work on sighting a little more.

Bad transition. I tried to get on arm warmers because it was kind of chilly but my body was so wet I spent around a min just trying to get those damn things on. I would have been ok without them in hindsight but what can you do.

No arm warmers!

Bike was shortened the week before the race due to road conflicts. It was 80k instead of 91k. Crappy.

When I started the bike I was still really dizzy from the swim. I was all over the road. It look be about 5 min to calm down and settle in. The good thing was is that I immediately started to pass people which gave me a boost.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect for this course. It was really hilly so there was crap loads of climbing which at the moment my body isn't build for. Take 20 pounds off my frame and I think I would enjoy them a lot more.

The first loop went really well. I just tried to take it nice and easy knowing that I had to run 20k after. There were two problems that started to surface though after the first loop. One was that my pertpertum (nutrition) was to strong and causing some stomach troubles and the other was my back was REALLY starting to hurt.

The second loop I slowed down a lot but that was mainly due to problem #2. My back was in agony. I dreaded getting back into the areo position and ended up spending a lot of time sitting up which slowed me down. My legs felt awesome though so I was looking forward to getting to the run and stretching out my back.

Not sure. I think that I need to practice some harder efforts in the aero position to strengthen my back. I can't feel like that at Ironman or it will be an even longer day then it already will be.

Good. Felt pretty efficient and my back was happy to get off the bike.

This run was 1k shorter then the standard half Iron distance.

When I first started to run I knew it was going to be painful. I felt sick right from the get go. I couldn't even think about drinking anything or eating anything. I was barely moving forward and was dry heaving. I actually was wishing that I would just have a nice good puke and get out what ever was causing these horrible pains. I got passed by about 50 people in the first 5k or the run. It was demoralizing. Everything was seeming to come apart.

Then something good happened. About 45 min into the run my stomach settled down and my legs which truly really didn't feel all that bad picked up the pace. All of a sudden I was back into it. I had been running around 6 min km's up till then and started to really pick up steam putting in a few sub 5 min kms. I didn't know how long the good feeling was going to last and how long my stomach would hold out so I decided to just push the pace as my legs were still doing really well and up to this point it was other problems holding back my speed.

I ended up holding a pretty good pace for the rest of the run. The last 3k was probably the most painful experience of my life, but I managed to hang on and run my second 10k 6 minutes faster then my first. It was a huge negative split which I was not expecting at all going into the race. It really felt good to finish off so strong. I think that If I could get the nutrition right I could run a lot faster next time.

Not sure. I'll have to think about my nutrition a bit.

Walked around and chatted.


Inexperience as this was my first crack at a longer distance race, back issues on the bike and stomach issues on the run.


I was a little ticked that they changed the bike such that it was considerably shorter then a true half iron but it was still a good race. Based on this race and my paces it is about equivalent to around a 5:08 - 5:12 actual distance half iron taking into account the longer distance would have slowed me down even a little more.

I'm really happy with that as it is my first crack at the longer stuff. My goal was sub 5:30 half and I think that I would have beat that easily.