Buffalo Springs Lake Ironman 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Swimming is definately my major limiter. I was one of the few people who did this swim without a wet suit. (I loaned mine to my brother-in-law, since it was his first OWS Triathlon,and he was more than a little nervous about the swim) Since I'm such a poor swimmer, I'm sure this added at least 10-minutes to my time. The swim temp was quite comfortable without the suit. Overall, I know I was VERY slow, but I was comfortable and swam the whole way, with no real breaks. I decided not to use the suit as a confidence builder for IM Lou, and this I made a good decision.

Swim Lessons start in 2 weeks. Hopefully they'll help.

My swim was so slow, that I thought I'd just take it wasy in transition. Ran by my rack and had to double back. The good part about being slow is that T1 is almost empty, so finding your spot is easy. Stopped to use the outhouse on the way out of T1.

Get to the race early, so you have enough time to get oriented to the transition area entraces and exits.

A little more on the course: Transition is down inside Ranson Canyon. The bike course has you climbing out of the canyon, and then riding of the top of the canyon for most of it's length (out and back). However, there are a few spots where you turn and ride down into, and then climb back out of the canyon. These hills are long, and moderately steep. When you're up on the top of the canyon, the wind comes into play. Down in the canyon and on the climbs, you're fairly sheltered from the wind.

The bike theme of the day for me was MECHANICAL ISSUES. When I hopped on the bike after the mount line I bent down my right aero bar down about 20-degrees, so I stopped right at the bottom of the first hill to get it pulled back into a ridable orientation. I should have seen this as an omen, the harbringer of things to come. About 45-minutes into the ride, I started to feel my saddle moving around a little. About 5-minutes later, I hit a bump and everthing rotated sideways about 30-degrees. Needless to say, I came to a quick stop. Obviously, my saddle clamp had come loose. I put the pieces back together and tightened everything up by hand as best I could. (I brought tire stuff along with me, but no other tools). For the rest of the ride, I had to stop and reset the saddle about every 6 or 7 miles (depending on bumps and vibrations). It makes you a little nervous going down the hills when you don't trust your saddle. Since the clamp was so loose, the saddle would work all the way to the back of the clamp after justa few seconds of riding, this is several inches further back than my normal position.

Living in Houston, I don't get to ride on may hills, so this course was a very unique experience. With a little work and a bike that holds together, I should be able to get up to the MOP here.

My only real complaint about the bike course is that there were NO outhouses along the course. NONE. ZERO. And there's almost no where you could scamper off to for a litte privacy. I've never had to use the bathroom in an HIM before, but I did in this one. I was more than a little uncomfortable for about 2-hours. I'm sure others had this issue also.


1. PUT TOOLS IN MY BAG FOR ALL FUTURE LONG RACES. I assumed that there'd be some sort of SAG support to provide mechanical support for any of the big HIM's. I've come to find out that support was out there, but their vehicles must have been unmarked or something because I didn't notice them.
2. Check/tighten screws on the bike when it's been on the car rack for 9-hours.

Racked the bik, changed shoes, grabed a hat and ran to the out-house.

Not a good run for me. I didn't taper for this race, so I wasn't expecting much, but I was disapointed in time. My plan was to pace off of HR, which I was able to do. I kept HR around 150, and walked the hills when HR climbed above 155. Was slow but okay until a little after mile 11. Nothing really HURT, but the fatigue really set in. I've been doing weekly 15-mile long runs in preparation for IM-Lou, so I was surprise. Walked a little bit of each of the last two miles.

Not sure. Even though I was much slower than normal (even slower than my LSD training runs), this felt like a very tough run. I'm thinking that no real taper and the bike seat issues / position conspired to kill my legs for the run.

Got a drink or to and stood in the lake for a bit.


1. Swim Technique (Lessons start in July)
2. Bike Mechanical Issues


Tough HIM Course, but a good change. I would rate this course as much more difficult than LongHorn or LoneStar, the other TX HIM's I've done. Scenery is either much more interesting than either of those races, or much more boring, depending on which part of the course you're on. A few other comments:

1. This is not a spectator friendly race. My wife and sister-in-law had to pay $6 a piece to get in to watch. I think this should be mentioned in the race info so people are not surprised.
2. No outhouses on the bike course. 56-miles can be a long way to hold it.

All in all, I'd like to do this race again. I'd recommend it.