Iron Star - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

About 150 yards in I got nailed in the side of the head with a foot that caused some leaking in my goggles. Another 100 yards in and some guy grabbed my ankle and I thought for sure he had pulled off my chip. I was concerned about it already because my ankles are pretty thin and I had less than an inch of velcro actually holding it on. He didn't pull it off, but it was screwed up and I was worried about it the rest of the swim. The bouys on the course were pretty far apart AND my goggles were fogging, so I spent a lot more time trying to navigate then I have in other races. The various problems probably cost me 2 minutes.

I need to remember my anti-fog spray for my goggles. I also need to take a look at the course. This was the first swim that I didn't actually see the lay out of the swim, so after the first turn, I wasn't too sure which direction I was supposed to be heading. The way the lake is, it would be tough to check the course without a boat.

Came out of the water and they had volunteers to help with wetsuits, which was great. That makes such a huge difference. The rest of T1 was okay, but slow. It was pretty cold so I pulled on arm warmers and gloves. I also put my shoes in on transistion because the grass was wet and I didn't feel like having dripping wet socks getting on the bike. I could have done it better, but I was certainly happy to have the warm clothes.

Don't pull the arm warmers all the way up. I could have done that once on the bike. I'm not too worried about it, because I won't doing races that are this cold very often.

I felt great on the bike. I probably hammered a bit too hard given the way I faded on the run. Having the PowerTap was a great benefit because I kept my power consistent the whole way. My average power was 183, which was right in line with my training rides.

My nutrition and hydration were just about perfect, I think. I had a gel every 25 minutes, except for two of the intervals where I had 1/2 a Clif bar. I had a single water bottle and my Camelbak full of Gatorade. I probably should have drank a bit more of the Gatorade.

Really need to pee on the bike, but just couldn't bring myself to go while riding.

Last note, at one point a VERY rough section of road, I thought for sure I had flatted my front wheel. Contrary to good sense, I was racing a tubular front and clincher rear. I only had a spare for the clincher becauase I thought it was much more likely to flat. I hit a big hole and heard the pfftt...pfttt...pfttt sound of the tire going down fast. At least I thought I did, because despite waiting for it to go down, it never did. It was strange and stressful since I still have about 15 miles or so to go on the bike.

Maybe go a bit easier.

Came into T2 having to pee like a race horse. Unfortunately, both port-a-johns they had in T2 were occupied, so I lost about 20 seconds while waiting. Plus since I had to go for so long, I was in there for quite a while. I would have saved over a minute if I could have made myself go on the bike. Other than that T2 was good. I pulled all my empty wrappers and gloves from my pockets, pulled on my shoes, and I was off.

Nothing. My transitions are one of my strong suits.

There are no words to describe how much ass this run sucked. I started out pretty well. I was fatigued, but no worse than any other brick. I was slow, but I knew I would be and I was hoping to pick up my pace. By mile 2 and 3, I was feeling okay. By mile 5, I was deep inside the hurt locker. My lower quads were on the verge of cramping. You know that tight feeling your muscles get just before they lock up? I walked all the aid stations so I could get Gatorade. I was planning on eating some gels on the run, but I couldn't stand the thought of choking another one of those down. I ended up running just mile by mile. I kept telling myself "In less than a mile there's another aid station where I can walk out the impending cramps."

I faded bad on the run. The first 3 miles were at about 9:00. The last 3 were much closer to 10:00. Still, when I hit the finish chute, everything pretty much melted away.

The run is a big limiter for me and hopefully the marathon training I'll be doing will help in that regard.

Walked around, got some water, pizza, lemonade, etc. Met up with JeepFleeb when I saw him cross the line. Got a massage which felt great. Showered.


Mostly the run.


A decent race. Only two water hand ups on the bike and that's all they had. No gels or Gatorade available, which would have seriously reduced what I had to take along. The bike course was pretty nice, even though the roads were open. Most of it was through a state forest that had very little traffic. The heavy traffic areas had lanes closed for us. The run course was much pretty provisioned with water, Gatorade, gel, and endurolytes. I'll consider wrapping up next season with this race again.