New Balance 1/2 Ironman - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

My goal was 30:30 for the swim, so I went out hard and tried to catch a draft off of someone faster than myself, unfortunately, I couldn't hang with the fast guys, but I was out ahead of the bulf of the second pack, so I swam by myself pretty much the first 1100 meters until I caught the previous waves. Surprisingly enough, my navigation was good, as this is usually my biggest problem with open water swims. Water was pretty choppy as well, but I am very happy with my time this year, I cut 4 mins off my swim time at the same event from last year.

Push harder to stay with the lead group so I can catch a draft off the fast guys.

I thought I did alright, had a long run from the swim exit to bike rack, maybe could speed this up by learning to have shoes on bike

Shoes on bike?

Was looking forward to the bike as I have had a good year training on hills and this course is hilly. Had a plan to take the first lap easy and get in my nutrition and then push the second lap. First lap went according to plan, got in my nutrition, kept the pace strong but comfortable and felt good going into the second lap. The second lap went pretty well as well, me and this other guy kept going back and forth until I finally dropped him on the hills, and then I made a bit of a nutrition mistake, instead of opting for water at the last aid station I went with another bottle of gatorade. This would come back to bite me on the run as I ended up taking in at least 100 too many calories.

Water instead of gatorade, other than that I think I need to maybe push harder in the flats. I was happy during my bike, but after looking at the results I need to push harder on the bike.

I would have cut at least another 10 seconds if I had elastic laces on my shoes, but I forgot to put them on these shoes. Arghhh!!! Not that 10 secs would have made a difference though!!!

Elastic laces

Within the first 30 secs of being out on the run course I knew something was wrong. My stomach felt like I had a brick in it. It was actually a weird feeling. i felt great, legs felt good, but my stomach was not cooperating. First porta potty was puke time, then second porta potyy was puke number 2, then dry heaving at the third portapotty. After that, my run started to come together quite well. 1st lap was 1:03:22, second run lap was 42:50. I smoked the second half of the run!!! I was expecting to be able to run 2 44min 10kms to finish the run, I managed a great race except for the first half of the run.

It goes back to the bike, I needed to have more water over gatorade. Oh well, now I know.

Crossed the line, saw my parents and said hi, then jumped back in the lake for 15 mins to cool down the legs


Too many calories on the bike. I talked about it after with some people and they agreed, you have to get in your water.


Just found out that this will be the last year Norm Thibault puts on this race. He does a killer job so it is sad to see him go, hopefully the next director does just as good a job as Norm. And the volunteers and spectators were fantastic as always.