Square Lake Triathlon - Half Iron Distance - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

best swim of my short tri career....8th race and moved by 1.2 mi swim from over 47 to almost under 40...

had alot left in the bag, could've swam harder

b/c weather was difficult to gauge in terms of coolness, had to put on long sleeve bike jersey (which turned out to be very smart), but slowed down T1 considerably. also, for some reason, had velcro'd shut my shoes in the clips making it impossible to get feet in shoes while on bike, had to stop and put shoes on....weird mistake

not velcro shoes!

stopped twice on bike...once for a wreck at which EMS stopped us for about 2 min and on second loop rider needed CO2 and stopped to help....lost 3 min there; east side of loop was a terrible road but mostly downhill; south/west/north sides of course were very nice roads/shoulder....be nice if one lane was closed to traffice esp afer hard rain started

Bike harder, much like swim, left too much in tank and not enough on course

T2 was slower than avg for me b/c I wanted long sleeve bike shirt off and took a few seconds then couldn't get sand/asphalt off feet to get in shoes, really lost some time to that

hadn't plan on hard rain soaking everything in t2, so will watch to cover gear better; keep towel in place to stay dry to clean off feet more easily

cramped badly on first mile....ran in just under 10 min, then ran several 7:40 miles, but hard rain and lack of mental strength really slowed me down

still haven't gotten enough bike to run transition training and overcome cramps immediately on start of run....have to work that out

ate hotdogs and trail mix...no real warm down


probably just mental strength


overall a good race; lousy t shirts (cotton and lame design); great swim course in clear, beautiful lake, good bike course; run course is boring, but ok