Firmman Half Iron Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Felt pretty good. Waded until I could get past the break. Tough to sight because the buoys were too small. Still managed to take a fairly short route across and stay as close to shore as possible.

Get better goggles and practice ocean swims more.

A little slow getting my socks on.

Need a small towel to dry off feet and face quicker.

Majority of the roads in great shape. A little windy when biking on route 1. Went out a little two hard which hurt me at the end of the bike and for the run. Ended up adding a half mile to the course at a poorly marked intersection where the volunteer the intersection unmanned for a bathroom break. Around mile 46 my right calf / Achilles started getting sore. Figured it was just from pedaling to hard, but turns out I pulled it.

Go out easier and try to get the race in during my peak phase of training instead a month later

Took a quick bathroom break. Had a little trouble getting the bike back on the rack because it was too low to get the bike under to get the seat on the rack. Had to squish it underneath the bar (couldn't use the break levers since the aero bottle was in the way)

Legs were dead from mile 3 onwards. Went to hard on the bike so had to do some walking when my heart rate got out of control. I also had sharp pain in my right calf / Achilles from tweaking it on the bike. Ate way to much food on run because I was using it to comfort because I didn't feel the best.

Go easier on the bike so I have some energy left for the run. Eat at a controlled interval. This was also the longest run of my life and first time a tried to string together run (over 8 miles) with a long bike ride (over 35 miles). Had done plenty of 10 mile runs and long bikes separately, but need to practice them together.

Put an ice pack on my neck and drank a bottle of water and then had a victory beer (which Amy drank most of). Should have immediately iced the Achilles.


Cycling to hard. Achilles pull.


The swim course was poorly marked and very hard to follow. They need to add more big buoys in the middle to help out (Apparently one swimmer got lost and showed back up at shore close to 90 minutes after the start of the race). Some of the intersections on the bike were poorly marked and some of the volunteers seemed to not have any idea on what was going on. Even the some of the police didn't seem to be fully aware of the intentions of the cyclists (a car hit one of the cyclist at the end of the bike).

My greatest beef was that the last half mile of the run was on the beach. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have people run in soft sand after already putting in that much exercise needs to have their head examined.

That being said, the majority of the volunteers and police did a great job and for a race of that length there are quite a large number of both. Part of the discrepancy may have had to due with the two week postponement of the race due to weather. All and all it was a typical FIRM race so you always know what you are going to get.