Ford Ironman 70.3 California - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The swim start went off bad, I could not hear the start because the horn broke so I just went with the flow. I started off easy and knew this would not be a fast swim for me, today was all about finishing! The first half went smooth and was very suprised that I did not get beat up at all. The second half is when all hell broke loose! I found it impossible to sight the bouys on the way back because the were small and close to the water, (I did not know it at the time but the red ones were going out and the yellow ones were for comming back). Once you hit the halfway point the sun was in your eyes and the water was rough and I completely lost my bearings, making things worse people started swimming in all directions. My plan going into the swim was to go out easy on the first half and crank it up on the second half, only problem was I had no idea I was way past the halfway mark! It seemed to me at this point all of the age groups were mixed up by now, nobody could see and swimmers were going all directions. I was glad to see finish!

Swim at a 1:30 pace. It would have been nice to practice the swim course.

Because of the cool morning I had planned to wear a jacket, decided to go with arm warmers, after struggling to get one on I ditched them and went with the jacket. I wasted too much time double checking everything!

Relax and allow myself to go faster.

Started the Bike course with a very slight tailwind, but it seemed most of the course was with a headwind, it was depressing because after the hills I was counting on picking up speed. I think I had one good downhill where I got up to 41 mph, other than that it was very slow for me. There were a few hills, lots of wind and two no pass zones with one that was 25 mph max, not a great course for me! I held back too much on the bike because I knew the run was going to be a sufferfest, I had way too many injuries for a good run!I kept thinking praying the bike would go longer to postpone my run, I knew the pain was comming!The last aid station I stopped to go p, cost me 10 minutes waiting and going, whose idea was it to put the porta poties on a hill?

Focus on just the bike, pay more attention to my pace and have a course strategy.
My training focused on hills,I neglected longer rides in the 50+ range.
Again, wish you could get on the course to practice!

Here comes the pain!

Stay in T2 and not go on the run!

The run went well until just after the sand, it went bad from that point on. My quads cramped up just beyond mile one, I started walking but they continued to cramp, so I just kept walking. I would walk and speed up into a jog and that seemed to be the ticket until I would run a hill or the sand, then it started all over again! Thirteen miles of this, I knew it was going to be bad because of my lack of run training, I did not expect it to hurt this much though.I was soo happy to finish, no more pain!
Thank you Yanti for cheering me on when I did not have it in me, and thanks Faeron for bringing me to end!

Not get injured!

Collected stuff and mobbed the pizza!


ITBS
Back injury
Lack of run training


Good course, I wish I could have enjoyed the run more, the cool ocean air on the run was soo refreshing and the crowd and Marines were awesome! The hills on the bike are not that bad, but the sand sucks!