Kansas 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Swim was awesome. I really enjoyed it. My goal was to be the last in my AG in the water. Mission accomplished. The problem with that is that you tend to be one of the last ones outta the water. I think I was like 89/100 in my AG out of the water. I couldn't navigate fo' sheet. I ended up BEHIND one of the lifeguards who didn't know I was there until I asked him where the finish was. He told me and I went.

Better navigation. Otherwise nothing. An enjoyable swim. Had I not swam !.7 miles I would've been much happier.

Forgot to clip my helmet. Whoops. I got my suit off and dried off and then put on my socks and shoes. Threw on the helmet and made sure I had everything. Forgot the Rocktane and to eat an orange I had peeled and packed away for T1. Oh well. Oh yeah I forgot to put endurolytes in my bento box, so I had to dig into my transition bag for the bottle.

CLip my helmet. Eat the orange. Not forget to put Endurolyes in my bento box.

Well what can I say about the bike. The course was uber hilly and the wind was very strong. One of the water stations was about a quarter way up one of the biggest hills, which allegedly caused accidents. I saw a near accident at the site on my way back. A shouting match ensued.

At mile 30 my small chain ring broke. Not sure what happened but it was spinnning away with no grab. Came to a stop, flipped the bike and went to work. I tried to tighten the cog but I had no tools so I decided to try the big chain ring. MONEY! So from mile 30 on I was in big chain ring. The hills made that tough but I had no choice. Had to stand on some of the bigger hills.

Oh and my knee started hurting at mile 15. Great. For those who don't know, my left knee tends to give me problems because of some old war wounds. (Not really war wounds).

Oh and had to stop at the portajohn for a few minutes at the beginning of the third leg.

Not have a bike problem. Train on hills more because they hurt. I found myself going as low as 6 or 7 mph on some.

I took my time. Had a Pop Tart, some water and then put on my shoes and took off the gloves and helmet and such. Stretched and then I was off.

Nothing. It was a nice little break.

The course was awesome and, after the first loop I decided to kick it up a notch. I took off and felt like I was on the wind. I was passing TONS of people left and right. It was all coming together. At the end of the first lap they were saying the runners were done because of lightning but nobody really stopped a group of us so we just kept going. So ... I caught up and passed LisaC and Amyjo (AmyjoTris) and Craig (Firstnet 911) and, at mile 11, they said to stop. I said I would finish and be back in 16 minutes but they told me if I kept going I would be DQ'd. I should've done it anyway.

Nothing. One of my best triathlon runs. I was mooovin' ...

I wasn't very happy they pulled me off the course in the midst of one of my better tri runs. So I went and gathered my stuff and bike and went back to the campsite. Showered and deodorized and then we drove home.


Lack of hill training. It was tough.


I crossed and one of the chip-takers said it was 1:15 on the nose. The missus said a couple minutes later that it was 1:17.

I left at 7:06 a.m. and finished at 1:15 p.m. That, to me, says 6:09. I would've knocked it out in 6:25-6:30. Not happy.

I refuse to rate this race. The course and volunteers were frickin' awesome. The organization, water-stop setup on the bike (and run for that matter) was less than stellar. And I thought the decision to pull the plug because of some dark clouds was a bit premature.

Really, I have nobody to blame but myself. If I would've finished in 5:30 I would've finished. AS it were, my 6:30ish wasn't good enough.

Good to see all the BTers in the hizzy. Great to meet a lot of you for the first time and see a lot of you again!!!