I knew going into this swim that I would easily eclipse my personal best due to swimming with the current. My previous best was about 37 minutes, I think. So my goal was to do it in 30 minutes. I was very surprised that I was able to do it in under 27 minutes. And I felt good enough to be able to run through the very long transition area to my bike. Often times after swims I don't have much in me to run through transition.
I tried drafting whenever I could but it just never happened. The start was pretty rough and I found myself getting smushed between two swimmers, so instead of moving I just went into my fastest gear and got out ahead of them and found some open water. From there on it was a very smooth swim. I didn't do much bilateral breathing, but took turns breathing from both sides to spare my neck. I would breathe out of the right for a minute or two then switch. However I did find that I pulled left whenever I would breathe out of the left, so that's something to work on over the off season.
I don't know that anyone from the previous wave caught me, but I did catch swimmers from the wave ahead of me, so that's usually my goal. So I was happy with that.

Maybe make more of an effort to draft. I did notice that the few times that I did pull into someone's draft my effort dropped substantially and I felt like I was going really slow and I'd be on top of them really quickly. So perhaps next time I might try and move out towards the front and catch the draft off a faster swimmer and see how it goes.

I did not attach my shoes ahead of time because I didn't think the extra few seconds that would save me was worth the potential screw up factor of blowing a shoe out of the pedal. Plus it was a long run on wet grass and really didnt want to get my socks wet before even getting on the bike. With that I was able to get on the bike pretty quickly with no issues.

Nothing

This was the best bike split I've ever had at any distance. I averaged 20.3 mph, and only once have I been faster than 20 mph before and that was a dead flat sprint in charleston. This particular bike was difficult because of the amount of racers on a short, one loop course. This race attracts a lot of beginner racers as well and the waves are set up to go from the slowest group to the fastest groups. So what happens on the course is you tend to have a LOT of slower riders who don't know the proper racing etiquette just yet, which results in a lot of side by side riding, otherwise known as blocking, and difficulties passing big groups. Despite that though, I had a great ride. For the most part I was able to get through most of the traffic with minimal slow downs. The beginning was the most difficult, as the race went on the crowds started thinning out some. I was able to stay in aero for nearly the entire race. I think that the several long rides I did(several 65+ mile rides) really helped with this race. I got off the bike feeling completely fresh and looking forward to the run.

I think I had my nutrition dialed in really well. I may have slacked somewhat on my fluid in take because it was significantly cooler than I had anticipated. I will also do more high intensity training this season. I will keep the distances down somewhat, but ride harder for shorter distances(55-65 mile rides).

Smooth transition

Nothing

This run started out great and went downhill very fast. I came off the bike feeling really good. My goal was to hold 11 min miles and if i felt good towards the end to increase the speed till the end. I had been planning a run/walk strategy of walking the aid stations for a minute. It went really well for four miles, but I didn't follow the plan. I went out too fast, as I typically do after the bike and was running just under 10 min/miles for the first couple miles. I felt good, but as I can see from my HR readings, it was too fast. I slowed down a bit but not enough for the next 3 miles. Mile 4 was when it started to go downhill in a hurry. My HR started climbing, and I started to develop some kind of lump in my gut. I still have no idea what that was, too much nutrition or not enough? I've never felt that before or since. I used nearly the exactly same nutrition that I used in the full IM last year and never felt like that. Thank god, I couldn't have done 22 miles feeling that way. Anyway, I gradually reduced my run/walk time from walking only aid stations, to walking every 10 minutes, to walking every 5 minutes to walking when I needed to, which turned into nearly every 2-3 minutes. Even when I was running I would've hardly called it a run. I bottomed out around mile 10 with a 13 minute mile. I guess once I knew the finish line was getting closer I was able to pick up the pace somewhat. I wound up finishing with a very disappointed run time of 2:27. I was hoping to have been closer to 2:15 or so. But lots of room for improvement.

I'm really not sure here. I felt like I trained pretty hard for the run. I did a lot of track workouts. I ran my long runs up to 11 miles. The only thing i didn't do was big brick workouts. I did a lot of 2-3 mile bricks, but nothing more. Next time I will try a few 6 mile bricks that will get me into the meat of a 1/2 iron run so that I'll have a better idea of what to expect and how to pace. Its pretty easy to run 3 miles off the bike, but it's what happens after that that always gets me. I have struggled with olympic distance runs as well so I believe more longer bricks are in order.

I sat for a while and tried not to faint. I took a while trying to eat because my body was saying no. I felt like garbage for a while after the race. I just needed to sit and get my blood sugar back up. Perhaps I didn't take in enough calories. I don't know. But it was the worst I had felt following a 1/2 iron. At least that told me I left everything out on the race course.


Lack of conditioning on the run. My swim and bike were stronger than I've ever been before. I may have gone too fast on the bike. My average HR was 171, but I thought I could manage it because I felt fine. But maybe going a little easier on the bike would've had bigger payoffs on the run. In past races, I've gone slower on the bike, but my runs haven't been all that much faster, only a couple minutes, compared with a 35 minute improvement on the bike. Maybe need to just hold back a tiny bit on the bike. DEFINITELY can't maintain an HR like that for a full IM.