Black Bear Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I started off in a great position for this swim, and the first few hundred yards went well. As things began to settle out, I found someone and decided to try my luck at drafting for the first time. I sat on his feet for a few minutes before I realized that the reason why I felt like I was going so easy wasn't because of the effects of the draft, but because he was going slower than I wanted. I had no trouble passing him after swinging around to his left.

After rounding the second buoy and turning towards the finish, the sun was pretty bad, so I did all I could to find shadows of buoys to guide me. I stayed among many swimmers for the entire race and finished wish a strong push to the beach.

I feel like I could have probably swam up to 0:30 faster if I hadn't made such a poor choice of who to draft off of. Lesson learned for next time.

Draft more effectively.

With numb feet from the swim, mounting my bike was uglier than it should have been. I had to try a few times to get my feet on top of my shoes before I finally got moving. Even though I practiced these transitions last week, nothing can truly simulate the way feeling of getting onto the bike after a hard swim.

Not waste 0:30 getting onto my bike.

I went into this bike leg knowing that I needed to take it much easier than I do in Olympic distance bike legs. I feel that I did a good job of spinning up hills (as opposed to really hammering my way up them).

I rode almost the entire course working with the 4th place finisher, Brady Dehoust. He move much faster than I could on downhills because his top cruising speed was simply faster than mine. I could climb faster than he could, however. It turned out that we made a pretty good team taking turns leading (with ample, and sometimes lots of space between us). He kept me honest on downhills and I pulled him back up the other side. Brady pulled away from me around mile 45 and I couldn't keep up his pace.

I ate a AccelGel about every 10 mi and drank 60 oz of water during the bike leg.

Nothing, unless I can find a way to pay for race wheels.

This dismount was much cleaner than the one two weeks ago at Columbia. I felt great getting off the bike and was ready to really hammer the run.

Nothing.

I started off feeling excellent, and stayed that way through the first loop. I was running strong but comfortably. The second loop got to me fairly quickly. By this time the wind had really picked up across the dam, which was completely unprotected, and everyone got battered for that 1.5 mi stretch. I really started to hurt during mile 8 (the beginning of the second time across the dam), and just laid the hammer down and gave it all I had left. While on the second loop, I grabbed as many cups of water as I could at every water station, typically putting two on me and drinking a third.

I ate two AccelGels, one at mile 2 and one at mile 7, during the run leg.

There was nothing that I could do to improve my run with the ability that I currently have.

I walked around a bit trying to regain my bearings, and then talked to Christopher Martin, the overall winner, for a few minutes. He really raced well, so it was great to get to talk to him.

My legs were in a good deal of pain, so there wasn't going to be any kind of cool down for me. I showered in the facilities at Beltzville State Park and laid around in the sun waiting for the awards ceremony.


Only my ability.


For my first Half Ironman, I am very pleased with this race. I felt that I prepared to the best of my ability, and then raced to the best of my ability. I could not have asked for a much more beautiful day. This was a great race.

As always, CGI put on an excellent pair of races today.