EagleMan Ironman 70.3 Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The swim went as planned. I stayed to the far left and it ended up being a straight line to the buoy. The male 35-39 group was huge, but for some reason nobody wanted to start at the front, so I ended up toward the front and side kind of by default. Regardless, I concentrated on a smooth, clean, long stroke. Only got swum over once or twice. After the first few buoys it was all clean water. I tried despeartely to draft maybe three or four times but I am just terrible at it. The water was very calm the entire way until the very last turn into shore. I caught some of the wave before us and some of the wave behind me caught up.

When we rounded the very last buoy I began kicking my legs a little more to get the blood flowing and my left calf cramped. WTF? I guess I need to hit the kickboard a little more.

I really tried to concentrate on my catch and 'pull strong'. I know I still need many more years of swimming before I can be considered and even semi-strong swimmer. I was only around a minute faster than my HIM swims from last year; however, despite my speed being pretty much the same, my endurance is much better. I came out of the water feeling very fresh.

Feeling fresh coming out the water allowed me to really move through T1. I think this is a pretty darn good T1 time for a HIM.

Nothing.

After the Swim and T1 I jumped on the bike at exactly 40 minutes, which was exactly according to plan. We had nice tailwinds for the majority of the beginning of the bike. I pushed here and there, then went easier for most of the first half with tailwinds.

At around one hour and 40 minutes into the bike, I caught up to a lot of the waves that had gone out ahead of us. For whatever reason, the race director this year sent out several waves before us that are statistically much slower waves. This resulted in a very, very crowded bike course at various points. Because of this I found myself on the "left" side of the bike lane a lot. The motorcyle Officials were on a mission today and I'd seen them give out a penalty to a guy in front of me for crossing the yellow line, so I knew I had to be careful. They also seemed to really be focusing on the M35-39 group and ignoring the women and men's master's groups. Sure enough, the Officials rode up to me and gave me a "Blocking Penalty". Part of me wanted to tell him what he could do with his Penalty and where he could put it - but I didn't. I asked him if that was a "Time Penalty" - knowing full well it wasn't - and he said no, that I'd just have to stop at the Penalty Tent around mile 40 and give them my name and race number.

I really wanted to argue with him but I knew it would be a complete and utter waste of time. It was really disappointing that several slower waves were sent out before me and as a result there was a TON of congestion, and at many points it was just impossible to zig-zag in and out constantly due to a lack of room. Which brings me to the subject of Drafting. Toward the end of the course it was bumper-to-bumper traffic... you could not drop back far enough to get out of a draft zone because someone was right behind you and there were dozens and dozens of bikes two and three deep directly in front of you. I've never ridden such a congested Bike course before.

After I received my Penalty I stopped at the Penalty Tent and sure enough 15 other M30-39 guys were stopped there too. They took my name and number and then using a big black magic marker etched a Scarlet A on my helmet number. I didn't see anyone from any other waves, and many of them were the one's doing the Blocking and forcing people to pass on the right or cross over the yellow line, but WHATEVER.

After my Penalty I saw the motorcycle Officials a few more times hovering around me and I heard him yell to one guy, "You got one penalty. One more and you're out. Game Over!!" Yes seriously, the Official yelled that to a guy and the guy wasn't doing anything wrong and I think he said it loud enough so I could hear it, too. So the rest of the ride I bobbed and weaved like a boxer zig-zagging in and out of the crowd, hugging the right side of the road for dear life.



There's nothing I can do about overzealous Officials and wave starts, so I'm going to take it all with a grain of salt and just accept that I am powerless over it and in future races, despite the congestion, I'm going to do my best to zig-zag in and out. I ended up getting better legal drafts that way anyway.

The night before I laid all my nutrition out on the counter and Fed (PennState) looked at me like I was kidding. When I saw the look on his face, and then I looked myself at the slew of bottles I had just lined up, it looked like a freaking science experiment. Fred then gave me some great insight into his nutrition. He told me advice his coach had given him, things I just didn't know and it quickly became clear that all along I had been overdoing my HIM nutrition and it was time to try and Keep it Simple.

Despite my newfound knowledge on nutrition, I still overdid it a little bit on the bike. The first hour I took in 24oz of Gatorade Endurance. The second hour I worked on my 20 oz Perpetuem nutrition bottle and throughout the first two hours I also worked on 24oz of plain water. The last 40 minutes I had one gel and more water. Considering the bike was relatively cool, we had some nice cloud cover for a majority of the time, and I was at an avg RPE of 6-7, 92 oz of fluid was "spot on". Unfortunately I could've used one less scoop of Gatorade Endurance (the container recommends threee scoops per 24 oz) and I should have waited till the run to start taking in and gels.

Other than (yet again) taking in too much nutrition (atleast for me) I didn't kill my legs on the bike and still ended up 2 minutes ahead of goal time.

Perfect flying dismount. Some people walking in front of me slowed me down a bit. Took and extra few seconds to put socks on and my feet are thanking me this morning for doing so.

Going into this Race I had three time goals. My "C Goal" was a Sub 5:30. I knew if I hadn't screwed up my nutrition (sodium overdose) at my October HIM I had an easy sub 5:30 in the bag, so I knew I was physically capable of a comfortable sub 5:30 time. My "B" Goal was my realistic goal. Based on my fitness and my training times, I knew I could pull out a 5:15. And my "A Goal" or dream goal was a sub 5:00. I knew this was a streeeetch and would require a magical, near miraculous day. When I came off the bike I saw that to hit my Dream Goal I would need to run a sub 1:38. I'd run a 1:37 in a stand-alone half mary last month, but having just swam and biked I quickly realized that goal was now gone. So my next goal was my realistic goal of sub 5:15.

When I started the run I felt very good. My legs felt good and my heart rate was stabile. My first three miles were around a 7:50 avg, but with each mile I could feel nauseau coming on and growing. I'd done it again. I'd taken in too much nutrition. My pace see-sawed between walking and shuffling at around 10 min miles. I stopped at a port-a-potty around mile 4 and had to wait 2 minutes to get in. I walked the aid stations and only took in water. Fortunately this time around I had not taken in too much extra electrolytes and but the turn around my body was starting to come around and I was feeling better. I began picking up the pace again, but then both my hamstrings started cramping badly. I got the neat idea to put ice down the back of my shorts and the ice numbed my hamstrings and I was able to start running again.

With three miles to go a good portion of the nauseau had subsided, I regained some decent form, and I finished very strong with an 8:15 avg pace.

Not overdose on electrolytes. If I had not screwed up my nutrition, based on how my legs and body felt, I'm confident I could've pulled out a sub 1:50 half. Maybe next month in Rhode Island.

I know I'm a good runner due to my stand-alone run times and training times. I also know and fully realize it's going to take many more months -- perhaps even a couple of years -- of heavy biking before I am able to run to my full potential after swimming and biking.

For first 30 mins I felt terrible, but eventually I came around.


I think from the report above it's pretty clear what I need to work on and fix.


Eagleman is a flat, flat course and we had a great day weather-wise. A bike Penalty, nutrition screw-up and port-a-potty stop cost me a sub 5:15, but I'm still satisfied with the overall results and I learned a lot. I can't beat myself up too badly as I only started biking and swimming 1 year and 7 months ago, and my very first triathlon was only 15 months ago. I know if I continue to consistenly train and learn, perhaps in 2011 I'll return to Eagleman and get my Sub 5.

It was really cool seeing all the women Pro's coming past me on the run. Congrats to James G who went SUB 5!! And a huge congrats to Fred who destroyed this course with a 4:38. All the volunteers were Awesome as usual, and I met a ton of people and just had a blast while down in Maryland.