1st attempt at 70.3 distance

hi guys - sorry, it's a bit long..

I joined here just on 18 months ago when I went from nothing into my first tri - a super sprint. I was hooked from then on. Living in the UK, I had to wait for another 6 months over winter before I managed to do my next tri. Last year I did 3 sprint duathlons and 6 sprint triathlons. then one day late summer, a few of us decided we'd do the South African Half IM. It sounded great at the time...

After hunting around, I ended up buying a great 16 week tri plan for beginner 70.3 triathletes. Lets say that what's considered a beginner for someone attempting a 70.3 is a lot fitter than someone who was only doing sprint races. Apart from a few problems in the latter stages of the training, I stuck to it very well.

Unfortunately I got sick in the beginning of week 13 which knocked me out of training for almost 10 days. It also happened to be right over Christams! It wasn't until almost the end of week 14 that I could start training again, and even then I was very weak and had to take it easy. It was only at the end of week 15 when I was feeling strong again, and then I started my taper week..., which was also the week I travelled. So my last 3 to 4 weeks of the plan was a complete loss & I was very stressed about it..

So how did it go - after 16 weeks of training I started & completed my 1st half IM race..

Overall I did a time of 7:22 - not ideal, but all I wanted for my 1st one was to finish with a smile & that's exactly what I did. there were around 1350 registered to race & I think I placed around 920th. the other guys I flew over with finished in times of 6:27, 6:23 and 5:54.

Swim (37 min)
First time I've done a mass start with around 8-900 people starting in a single wave! Boy, was that an experience. It was a run start into the sea. All was going well until I turned at the 1st buoy 300m in when I got kicked in the face and my gogles came off. Fortunately I put the goggles under the swim cap, because they were pushed right up off my eyes & would have lost them if they weren't. It knocked me for a minute or so, but once I got them back on & into a rythm all was good again.

Bike (3:47)
The cycle course was tough. A single out & back lap with 45km out from the town over a rolling, continuous climb until the turn around point. It was terrible... My HR was all over the place & average speed was 20km/hr.. very strong head winds made it very slow! The way back was an absolute pleasure smile and I was hitting speeds of up to 73km/hr.., pushing my average speed overall up to just over 24km/hr. I felt good on the way back and managed to pull back quite a few positions that I had lost on the uphill sections.

Run (2:47)
This was definitely the one part I was not looking forward to. I'm not a good runner, and I don't enjoy the run section of any tri. At best I was hoping for a time of around 2:25, so for me this wasn't too bad. By the time the run was going, it was very hot. The day turned out to have temps of just on 30 degrees & everyone was suffering from the heat.

To anyone out there thinking they'd like to do the longer distances, but are only just managing to do sprint races and are a bit scared.. don't be. The key to finishing the longer race is being consistant on your trainign and choose a plan that you can follow and that works for you. If you aren't going to put the time into training and using the plan - then forget about it.

Overall - a great experience & I'm looking forward to the next one. The same bunch of us will be doing the Monaco 70.3 in September before hitting out and doing the full IM in 2010 somewhere in europe.... unless I get that lottery ticket to Kona ... woohoooo