Musselman Half-Iron Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The start was in thigh deep water and since I could see the two waves infront of me still walking, I knew it was going to remain pretty shallow for a while. When we started, I jogged a little and swam then did a few dolphin dives. That seemed like the best way since the bottom was sandy here and I shot past a few guys who were swimming. After a hundred yards or so of that, I was getting a little winded and the water was getting too deep to dolphin effectively and I started to swim. The chop was not too bad here and there were two bouys for sighting before we hit the first turn buoy and I was doing OK at that point and was among the pack, but not drafting anyone.
After the first turn when we headed into deeper water is where it all came apart. The water was rougher here and we were heading towards the sun and there were no bouys to sight off except for the next turn bouy 4 tenths of a mile away. I just swam in the direction that everyone else was going, but the waves were knocking me out of line and I was all over the place. I was overtaking people floating the water that were in the waves before me, but I was not seeing many people near me actually swimming anymore. I must have been pretty far off course, since I only saw people off to my right and support boats on my left. Eventually I did see the next bouy in the distance, but it took me forever to get there as I couldn't stay straight.
The last leg was better since the waves were coming from behind now and it was easier to see with the sun behind us. Just after the turn, I felt a long string of lake plants wrapped around my ankle and kicked to get them off, but then I realized they were caught on my timing chip. I stopped, unwrapped the plants, saw my chip was not looking very secure, so I took it off and put it back on under water. A little later, it occured to me that I couldn't remember putting my HR strap on. I felt my chest and couldn't find it, and thought about where it was and how I should not forget to put it on in transition.
I swam to shore and when I stood up, Danielle was right behind me. The bottom was not nice and sandy here like at the beginning and I was afraid of getting cut on the mussel shells, so I swam a little farther until it was too shallow to stroke without hitting the bottom, then stood up and carefully walked in.

The dolphining was very effective and I will do that in the future if the water is shallow like this. My navigation was terrible and it was partially because I was not expecting the rough water and lack of bouys. I should have been more careful to stay with people and sighted more often, although I don't know what I could have seen. My timing strap was better than the ones they gave us and I should have used it instead of relying on their old beat strap. I was lucky I didn't lose my chip in the water.
This was probably my worst swim ever and the pace ended up being the pace that I'd swim if I was doing catch up drills.

I had my missing HR monitor on my mind and after I got my suit off, I opened my bag to find my strap. It wasn't where I thought and so I touched my chest again and I was wearing it the whole time, I just didn't feel it under my wetsuit. Stupid me. I stuffed my bag back and put my shoes and helmet on, said "bye" to Danielle and was on my way.

Have an actual checklist before the race so I don't flake out and think I forgot something and waste time and mental effort worrying about it.

My splits tell the story of this ride. The first dozen miles were into the wind and uphill and it was slow and frustrating. The next dozen were either downhill or with the wind and were fast and fun. There was a little climbing just afer the half way and then more fast roads. The old Army base road was rough and not fun to ride on, but after that it was flat and fast to the end. The rain started with ten miles to go, and it was refreshing.
I used every bottle exchange and got HEED, had 1.5 Clif bars and four GUs.

I noticed that my exertion/HR goes down as my speed goes up. If I would work as hard on the flats and downhills as I do on the inclines, maybe I would be faster overall. It is time to install Danielle's old power meter and start using it to help me manage my exertion in various conditions and terrain.

Nothing interesting happened here. In my last race I forgot to take my Garmin, so I made sure I remembered this time.

It was raining when I started and I expected a very good run split since it would keep me cool. My goal was HR in low zone 3 or a 7:20 pace, and I got where I wanted to be within the first mile. I had two GU packets with me and I planned to have a HEED at every aid station. My mile splits were close to where I wanted considering the terrain until about mile nine or ten when I started slowing down. The last few miles were down hill or flat, but my pace was slow and I felt like crap. I just wanted to get it over with and slogged out the last couple miles.

I didn't get enough calories on the run. With the cool rain, I was not motivated to drink at every aid station and the two GUs were not enough. One more GU packet might have made all the difference.

Ate some watermelon and walked back to transition and packed up all my soaking wet and dirty gear. I stretched and then walked some of my stuff to the car and changed from my wet race clothes to some different wet clothes. It was raining really hard at this point and I wished I had an umbrella as I walked around and waited for Danielle to finish. There was pizza and ice cream, but I never have much of an appetite after long workouts, so I only grazed a little bit. The pizza was actually good, not like the usual after race pizza you usually get.


If I had sighted more effectively on the swim and if I had taken in more calories on the bike and run my race would have gone a lot better. The plus is that I feel more motivated to get into better shape by improving my diet and doing more running and race-effort training before FIRMMAN in September.


This race has gotten a lot of good reviews and I agree that they are very organized and everything went super smooth. They also give out a lot of nice swag that I didn't expect. The number of volunteers at the aid stations was really good and I thought it was funny running through them how all the kids were enthusiatic about yelling "water" and "sponges" even though I doubt many people actually wanted sponges when it was raining.
What I didn't like about the race was there were not enough bouys in the water especially since it was so choppy. The bike portion through the Army base was not nice and the run course had too much concrete sidewalks that were tough on the legs.