First race since IMLP 08 (lost 09 to a knee injury) so it was good to get the cobwebs out of the system. Went out a tad to hard with the adrenaline again and got that shoulder tired, can't breath right feeling about 100 yards in. Had to stop for about 15 seconds to catch my breath, get my head on straight and tell myself I am in great swimming shape and stop freaking out 100 yards into the race. Settled down and had a good swim after that. I was kind of expecting that since it was my first race in 2 yrs. Control that andrenaline! First leg out was pretty crappy for the reasons I just talked about and also because I had forgotten how to swim straight! I was all over the place. Everytime I looked up I was way off course. By the bouy for the turn I figured out what I was doing and got into my swim groove. Had a pretty decent swim the rest of the way.

Control my adrenaline at the start.

Wetsuit stuck on heel and watch again. Need to practice more as it has been a while. No biggie as this was a half and transitions were definately not my focus.

Course was listed as 56.6 but I made a wrong turn and cost me about a minute or so. My bike computer however shows 57.14 which is a big difference. That puts my avg at 18.9 which is about on target for what I was looking to do.

Not sure what I learned here in relation to my goals/pacing plans for LP. I thought the course was challenging but not a monster (like Black Bear). The number of turns really did slow you down as you were braking and slowing a lot, especially in the wet conditions.
I felt good during the ride and didn't push too hard. I felt really good climbing and think I have made significant improvement there. I think I could have pushed harder, but it is hard to argue with my run results so maybe it was just right. I was hoping to pace at 19-19.5 for this race but I was just guessing as I had never ridden it before. Totally went on feel. Second half was much harder, windier, and on crappier roads than the first half of the loop. It didn't pour rain, but we had some showers and the roads were wet in areas.

Probably could have gone harder.

Since it is a half I really am not concerned with T times. Took a little longer as I had placed my shoes and socks in a plastic bag to cover them during the swim and bike as it was off and on raining. I think this paid some nice dividends as I was putting on nice dry socks and shoes. It didn't rain once during the run so that was nice. Also put vaseline on feet prior to socks in case it did rain. No blisters for me thank you.

Not much. Wasn't focusing at all on Transition times.

Really good run! Legs and back were stiff the first mile or so, but not debilitatingly bad. Really focused on shortening my stride and getting a lot of turnover to run the lactic acid out. This seemed to work and soon I was ticking off the miles. I looked at my watch after the first 2 miles and realized i was running sub 8 pace and thought that I wasn't really pushing it. Was very happy. Just kept a nice long training pace going the entire run. On the hills I focused on shorter strides and keeping my HR down but not walking. This is the furthest I have run in my training to date so I was kind of expecting in the back of my head that I would have to walk at some point. After I hit the 8 mile mark I looked down and calculated I was around 61 mins into the run. I knew I was in for a good time and really wasn't dreading the 5 miles left. I think my pace only fell off slightly towards the end, but not significantly and was very psyched to avg 7:49 per mile. Quads were getting a little tight at the end, but am very happy with my running at this point in the game with 2 months to go! I think a sub 4 hour marathon at LP is very possible at this point! I ran 4:21 in 2008 with my best half iron run time of 1:52 that year. This course was hillier. The clouds were nice but it did get a little humid on the run.

Nothing at all. I felt good and had a great attitude the whole run.

Brought my Stick so I rubbed down a little.


Swim start needs to be more controlled.


Was great to meet a fellow BT'r at the race and have someone to talk to prior. Fred was smoking on the bike but lost a huge amount of time to a wrong turn. He went flying by me at mile 20 or so and I thought something was wrong because he was out of T1 ahead of me. He also got some bad directions on the run and ended up calling it a day. I felt bad for him because he was on fire on the bike and could have posted a pretty special time. His bike split was pretty awesome even with the missed turn.

I thought this was a very challenging course overall and a good prep for LP. The race was well run and had a lot of very nice, helpful volunteers. Only downside was there were a lot of turns and you really had to pay attention or you could miss one. (I did and so did Fred.)

Overall I would recommend this race. After race BBQ was very good with burgers, perogies, dogs and drinks. Nicely done NJ Multisport!