Patriot's Half 2007 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Swim felt very comfortable. Navigated well around the 2 turns, but coming into the shore, you couldn't see the bouys because of the sun, and because they weren't were everyone was expecting them to be. On the map it looked like it was a rectangular course and when you came around the last bouy it was actually triangular and you needed to cut way into the shore, but most people just went straight into shore making the swim a lot longer than it needed to be. I followed those people for a bit, but progress coming back in to shore was slow because I just couldn't get a good feel for where I was supposed to be swimming towards. I found one of the guys in a kayak and asked him to point me in the right direction and I was way off course (along with most of the rest of the people out there), and headed back into shore. I cut my foot on a rock coming in to shore, which created major problems for the rest of the race.

Not cut my foot, not get lost! :-p

This transition was soooo long. It was about a half mile from the swim to transition, so hard to judge what a good transition time would have been. This was 5 out of 15 in my age group- so not too bad. The path was very rocky in parts, so it was difficult to run on it, slowing me down quite a bit. Bike rack position was good though- towards the front of the transition area. Wetsuit came off fairly well (especially considering I really didn't practice getting it off much) and the rest of the transition went ok. I dropped one of my Clif bars twice heading out of transition- very frustrating!

Not drop my clif bars (maybe get a bento box before IM AZ). Not have to run a half mile :-p

A pretty bad bike leg for me. The cut on my foot made it feel like I had glass digging into the bottom of my foot for most of the ride. I drank 3 full bottles of water throughout the course, but apparently that wasn't enough (see the run comments section).
My new positioning was not that comfortable, and my feet fell asleep pretty quickly, causing my calves to cramp up. I finally got off my bike to get circulation back in my calves on Little Creek Dam Road, and took off my shoe to look at my foot, thinking there was something in it (there wasn't).
My pace was much slower than I would have liked it, mostly because I lost so much power because my calves were cramping. I did pass two people on Carwash hill/Jolly Pond, but overall was a disappointing ride for me. Also, I didn't realize that it was a 57 mile course, so I got pretty pissed at riding over the 56 mile marker and not getting off the bike :-p

Drink more water, adjust my positioning to make sure my feet don't fall asleep. More longer rides to make sure I won't lose power over the distance.

Stopped to put on more sunscreen and body glide, grabbed a drink of water and headed off.

Make sure I got sunscreen on my back, not just my arms (maybe try out the spray sunscreen).

This run was just miserable for the first half. I was dehydrated, and wasn't sweating at all by the time I hit the run course (not a good sign), also with the cut on my foot and the cramps in my calves I wasn't going anywhere very fast. Having Josh at the 1-mile rest stop was a huge lifesaver, because I was just about in tears when I saw him, and he convinced me just to keep moving (always good advice). For the first 5 miles, I pretty much walked, with a bit of running when I could. I concentrated on getting hydrated and cooled off, and started taking two cups of water at each rest stop, one to dump over my head and one to drink. Around mile 6 (when you finally hit some shade) I was actually able to start running in between rest stops and just concentrated on running from stop to stop, and actually managed to keep up a pretty good pace and started passing people (yay!). I saw Steve, which was awesome-- it was so great to see someone I knew! From mile 6 back, I just concentrated on running (I figured since I was miserable and just wanted to get off my foot, at least I would get off it faster if I ran).
About mile 9 or 10, a blister I didn't know I had popped and started leaking out my shoe (gross!)-- this was caused by me altering my stride to avoid putting pressure on my cut foot. But at this point, I really didn't care what else hurt- kind of maxed out on pain, etc so it didn't make much of a difference except grossing me out :-p. Getting back to Josh at the first water stop and heading into the finish was the best feeling though, you can't beat that feeling of crossing that finish line and finally getting to sit down!!!

Pretty much everything- not cut my foot, not get dehydrated before I even started the run. Although I think once I got on the run course I did the smart thing, and worked on taking care of the problems I was having (or at least the ones in my control) instead of just trying to force myself to run and possibly going down and not finishing the race. Disappointing to have such a slow run (about half an hour slower than I have ever run a half before), but nice to be able to say that I negative-split the half marathon at the end of my HIM! I ran about 9:30 to 10:00 splits for the last 4 miles, and overall ran the second half 25 minutes faster than my first half.

In order: getting lost, cut foot, rocks, dehydration, leg cramps, dehydration again, cut foot again :-p


Considering that I had essentially the worst race of my life, and had a harder course than last year, to finish in the same time I did last year really tells me that I would have been able to do so much more, and makes me feel confident that I can finish the Ironman in April (although I do have to say that I'm incredibly nervous about it!)