Water was reported as being about 2C colder than a measurement earlier in the week, so I was glad to bring my neoprene cap as I've had issues with cold water in practice OW swims. The water did not feel sooo cold, but the cap was not a nuisance and I did not overheat. A short swim, maybe 100m from the dock to the swim start, no real warmup but I just didn;t feel like doing too much honestly. Gun went off and I just started swimming, wanting to get in a rhythm. Had some contact but overall not bad. Visibility under water was the worst I've ever seen (or not seen, I guess) but that did not phase me. My navigation was so-so, having to correct on a fairly easy navigable course. You could only swim off course in one direction, as the "inside" of the rectangle was blocked off by buoy lines, and boats anchored to large wooden stakes that were fixed. Didn't feel like drafting too much as it was quite wavy and I felt like it was more relaxing to swim by myself. I did sense that people were drafting off me based on contact at my feet but I didn't really pay too much attention to this. On the return part of the first lap you were on the "open" part of the lake, and it was quite windy and wavy. I only breathe to my left so this meant breathing into the waves. It definitely cost me a bit of fluidity in my swim. As I started lap 2 I saw 15:40 ish on my watch which was a good sign as I wanted to swim around 33 mins. Exited the water at 36 mins though, I underestimated the connecting straight after the second lap. Did not want to overextend myself and feel I could hold this pace or even faster for an IM, I just have to get the effort dialed in a bit.

I would learn to breathe bilateral to avoid the waves a bit better, and learn to measure my effort a bit better to go a bit faster without worrying to blow up.

Went faster than I thought, based on the distance from the swim exit to T1, but it allowed ample time for me to get my suit off which I struggle with sometimes. Put my shoes on and ran/walked with them to the exit and hopped on.

Not much really.

Had my gameplan as between 290-300. Did a TT about 10 days prior which revealed to me a higher FTP, and had tested it last weekend with 2x60 mins at 300W, which felt kind of hard but not too hard. So I felt this was a safe margin. I ended up splitting the difference here at about 294, with the last 10 ish minutes dialing the effort back a bit for the run, avg there was around 270. I passed a LOT of people, which felt good. Lost 3 of my gels though, that was dumb as I had taped them to my toptube but it's curved and so not a good surface. Glad I ate at least one. There were no aidstations for the bike (but you could have a coach hand you bottles every lap, which I didn't have of course). I had prepped 2 bottles with 150cal of sportsdrink and emptied 2 gels in each botttle, so every bottle had about 350cals. With the one gel I had, this meant my total calories for 2.5 hrs would be about 800, really not that much. So I forced myself to make sure I drank every drop of liquid I had. This resulted in my having to pee twice as the weather was not very warm.

Change way to carry gels, or probably switch to maltodextrin due to running problems.

Because my saddle is so high it's virtually impossible to rack my bike "fast", the bar you hang your bike on is only marginally higher than my saddle, plus my bag was in the way. Put socks on and got the gels for the run. Didn't know where to exit T2 but a volunteer pointed me in the right direction.

It was a fairly speed transition as is but finding the best way to rack my bike might be useful.

Tried to keep the effort measured for the first k, my legs didn't feel so good. After 3k I found my legs and with the tailwind I settled into a good rhythm. As I was getting up to the dyke in the 3rd round though I experienced the side stitches I also had in my sprint tri a couple weeks back, which really sucked. At this point I was 11k in and I had to walk a little bit, losing about 90 seconds in one km... Before this happened I had taken one gel and some cola, water and sportsdrink from the aidstations. I still had one gel with me but decided that I was not going to ingest anything for the remainder of the race. I could slowly accelerate again but at a rate 20s slower than before the stitches. In the 4th lap with about 3k to go I said to myself fuck it I'm gonna accelerate and I'll see what happens and I could eat off some of the time, overtaking a lot of athletes.

Get to the bottom of the stitches. Not sure if its nutrition related. Don't feel as though it's a case of overbiking as the legs felt really good.

Drinking some and meeting my dad


Inexperience, slow bike equipment (seriously, a TT bike with racewheels would probably make about 10 mins of difference) and run execution/nutrition


Good organization. I feel that having no aid stations on the bike is a bit weird for a half ironman distance race but We all knew it before hand and could plan accordingly. It's really quite a traditional race and I would probably come back to do it in the future.