Dutchman Iron Distance Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I don't know why this swim took me forever. I have been having decent swim times all season but I guess not this one. The waves were so small there was no hope of drafting. After turning the furthest buoy, the sun decided to peek out and completely blind me. We were swimming into the sun most of the way back. At least I wasn't last out of the water.

umm, swim faster, duh!

no problems here. remebered to apply my sunscreen!

move a little faster maybe

It was all good until I hit the patch of soft gravel right at the start of the bike course. Down I went. Ripped up my left arm, shoulder, hip, Gravel in my shorts and down the back of my shirt. Blood. Bike was ok and I was just bleeding, not broken. I got on the damned bike and started pedalling. I bled down into my glove for about the first 20 miles, after that it stopped bleeding and just ached when I tried to hunker down and get more aero. My hip hurt too.

OMG this course was all hills. Someone counted 40 big hills over the 56 miles. That is not including the rollers. There were a few flats that I tried to take advantage of. I was second to last most of the time.

Going into it, I knew about the hilly course and my goal was to finish the bike in 3.5 to 4 hours and I made that. It would have been nice to have been faster but I wanted to finish the race, not bonk.

With about 8 miles left to go I finally felt like I'd found a good pace. Too bad it wasn't earlier.

When I got to right before transition I dismounted my bike and walked over the gravel. I did not care to repeat the earlier fall.

Nutrition was good - Endurolytes, one regular Gu, 2 Gu Roctane (yummy!) and part of a power bar (my stomach said no to more bar), part of a bottle of Gatorade, 2.5 bottles of water.

Ah, not fall. Push the hills a little harder

remembered to apply second round of sunscreen!

nothing

The weirdest thing happened when I started to run. I felt decent. My legs didn't feel like the rocks they normally feel like. Now, that doesn't mean that I ran fast. It just means that this run felt like every other half-mara I've done. I felt relatively fresh at the beginning.

The start of the run was on gravel and very uneven. I was going out when lots of others were coming in. We hit the pavement about .5 from the start, then did 4 miles out and 4 back, then a weird loop going past the original entrance to the paved trail, into residential and then up "Amsterdam Hill." That was a big hill to put at mile 11.5. Dammit, I ran (shuffled) the whole thing. I was not going to walk it! After that I knew I would finish the race.

the volunteers on the course were awesome. There was cold water and Gatorade at every mile and markers at every mile! Only problem was no toilets. I had to go at one point. . .bushes are my friends. they had some warm Coke at mile 9. I wish they'd had that earlier. I took a hit of that and carried on.

I tell you, my husband, friends Heather, Jon and Taena had stayed to see the bitter end. . .they were cheering so hard I almost cried.

Transition was all cleared out except for one rack with my bike. the person who came in after me must have had someone pick up her gear already. My bike was lonely and I was just glad to cross the finish line.

learn how to run faster

talk, water, Dill Pickle chips, Luna Recovery smoothie, walk around a bit, pick up my stuff


crashing and being a mediocre athlete at best


I totally missed all of the end of race stuff. No food for me, but at least I got some ice cold water.

It would have been better had this race not been the weekend before Pigman, which is a big HIM in Iowa. This was the first year for this race at this distance. Previously it was an Oly.

I don't think I am ever doing this distance again.