Tawas Triathlon Festival - HIM+ - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Started easy and walked out before starting to swim since it was shallow. Just stayed off to the right and swam. I managed to keep my pace nice and steady and used bi lateral breathing for the entire swim. The only issue I had was after rounding the end buoy I drafted a guy that veered off to the left a bit, so I had to make up some time to get back on course. At this point I could see the shed on the pier that I knew would be a good site mark to follow. It worked perfectly. I took the wetsuit off in the water so I could rinse my self off a bit.

Nothing really, the swim was easy and enjoyable.

There was a long walk to transition since it was moved into a parking area downtown. The purpose of this race was pacing and learning how not to jack my HR. So I walked a lot of this with some slow trotting in spots.

This is a real nice course with a few good hills but nothing that will kill most of us flat landers. This ride as all about pacing and not "eating the paste". So my first lap of a whopping 17.75 mph avg was the plan and I just watched folks pass me and enjoy the ride. I came across 3Fun around mile 2 or 3 and chatted with him for a minute before he took off. About 4 miles in I realized that I never lubed my chain after cleaning it on Wednesday, that's why I'm so noisy. I knew there was tech support around mile 13, so I kept the pace easy as planned til that point. I should've worn my arm warmers as it was quite chilly to start and my arms and hands were kinda of numb which made working with the water bottles tough. After getting water bottles and lubed up I headed down River Rd, which had a couple of hills. My front dérailleur must have been thrown off a bit by the rear wheel as I dropped my chain when I shifted into the big ring going down the first decent downhill, as it's been flawless till I changed to the disc. Kept an eye on it and had no more issues. Near the campground I passed a pace line of around 15 people and they were cooking. With no USAT officials out on the course they knew they were safe. I picked up the pace a bit for this section. I passed Scott at the turnaround at the end of River Rd and chatted with him for a minute. When I returned to the aid area I hit the porta pottie which was worth the time penalty as there was no way in he11 I was going to piss on myself (with the rain in Muncie it just din't matter in dry conditions I won't do it). Heading down the hills here promised to bring some speed, of course when I hit the S turns a slower girl decided to veer from the right side to the left side when I was cruising down at a good clip. WTF was she thinking, I gave her a quick yell of on your left and whizzed by her. The return trip with the hills was tough and the HR jacked a bit here. Once I hit Monument for lap 4 on the Garmin I had a nice up tempo ride and finished with nearly a 21 mph avg for the last 15 miles which included the last mile where I was getting out of the saddle and stretching my hammies and calves to prepare for the run.

The new Kuota is no longer a tri virgin and had it's cherry popped and performed well.

Had 1 Hammer Gel, 1 three hour bottle of Infinit, and ate half a Cliff bar at two different times.

Not eat the half of Cliff bar so late, and I think I may have to stick to 2 hour bottles, but will practice with 3 hour bottles the next couple of weeks. I felt a bit bloated to start the run.

Having the first spot inside the T2 was sweet! Took a second and sprayed some sun block on, since I figure this will have to be done at B2B.

I saw Karen, but I was on the other end of T2 by that time, so I missed my smooch.

Went out on the run with an easier pace to start. This course will be similar to B2B with out and backs, so I kept things dialed down to the first turn around and then kept it easy to the 5 or 6 mile mark then started picking things up a bit. I had quite a few folks pass me on the first lap of the run, but I was determined to not "eat the paste" and kept my pace down and knew that I'd real a lot of these folks by the end. When I hit the turnaround I didn't see K and needed a kiss. When I hit the last turn around I chatted with 3Fun again and he seemed to be having a rough time and told me to just go, for the run back I really put the hammer down for my slow butt. I hit the lap button at 13.1 miles and noticed it was at 1:54:32 which I think may be a pr for any half mary in the past, so that was nice.

Nutrition worked fine with a gel at some point, water, heed and on the second loop I used coke every other aid station. All things I'll have at B2B, so this was a great run to work with these items.

Ate some fruit and grabbed my stuff out of transition, which was wide open and looked as though anyone could stepped in from the sidewalk and walked off with my bike.

I missed seeing Juergen and Scott finish and we were both bummed about that. Having a new bike makes one paranoid about leaving it in an area that isn't very secure.


This was about pacing for IM and not a PR. The day went well.


We really had a nice time hanging out around East Tawas and overall enjoyed the day and other things going on. Were all ready signed up for next year and this will be my A+ race with an eye on a PR. I just wish Kenny of 3D was more understanding about my questioning the run course mileage. He basically told me my Garmin was off by .76 miles, so after confirming the long run course Sunday morning with two Garmins and my truck, I guess I have to take my truck in to the dealer and get the odo calibrated and see what I can do about my bad Garmins ;-)