Beach to Battleship HIM - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The incoming tide was nice. In-water start with an immediate right hand turn was interesting and got very crowded. I was able to make some space for myself after about 200 yds and I tried to stay long and smooth. I mixed in some backstroke when I needed to catch my breath but always kept moving. After exiting the water, my feet were completely numb... I feel lucky that I didn't faceplant... The wetsuit stripper guy was great; almost ripped my feet off, but very effective.

Waited to start until about 11:00 when things were warmer??

Putting on tri-top in the cold with wet skin... very difficult.

Putting on arm warmers in the cold with wet skin... also very difficult.

T time includes lengthy (300 yds), chilly, barefoot run from swim exit to T1.

The bike is where the complete lack of training reared it's ugly head.
The first 25 miles were OK and I held about a 19.5 mph average. Somewhere between 25 and 30 miles, my legs decided they were done. At that point I revised my time goal from 5:30 to 6:00. The remainder of the ride was spent getting passed like I wasn't moving at all. Passed two aide stations. The water bottle folks were very good about letting the bottle sit on top of their hand so it didn't rip my arm off when I rolled by and grabbed the bottle. Never tried HEED before... It was some kind of melon flavor and was pretty good. After getting over the last drawbridge, very slowly, the transition area came into view... I have never been so happy to get off the bike before in my life.

Train.

Volunteers took bike and helmet and racked it for us. That was nice.

Almost immediately I thought I was in serious trouble. The legs just weren't responding, and I was having some serious problems with my lower back. First two miles were real slow, lot's of walking and stretching. Luckily, the back pain disappeared and I was able to start chugging along. To be honest, I've never run 13 miles in my life; turns out it's quite a ways... I settled into a routine of jogging most of the time and walking for about 15-30 seconds every 3 or 4 minutes. Aide stations were good, hit one every mile. I alternated a gel/water or HEED every other station. I never had any cramping or stomach problems, so that was good. The middle 9 miles were pretty uneventful, just playing mental games to try and keep my mind off my legs. When I hit the 11 mile mark, I was at 5:42 and decided there was no way I would let myself go over 6:00. I pushed pretty hard those last two miles and got in a couple minutes under, so I consider that successful. In the last mile of the run, we went over a LARGE bridge that was several hundred feet above the water. I imagine some of the folks doing the full might have had some interesting thoughts while on top of that bridge with another 14 miles to run...

I did everything I could given my situation. I'm satisfied with my run.

Free beer and pizza... 'nuff said.


Absolutely no training for two months prior to race... period.

My knee feels good following the race though, so I believe I made the right decision to stop training and suffer through one race so that my knees will hold up for many future races.


For the first time out, SetUp Events did a great job with the logistics of this race. The only issue was the wait for the water taxi to get back to the mainland after the race. I have faith that SetUp will straighten that out for next year. Otherwise, it was a top-notch event.