I had a great swim. I did not push hard and felt comfortable the entire way. I loved my new wetsuit. With the new wetsuit, I was able to breath much easier. As i approached the finish, I felt like I could do the whole swim again without any problems,

Probably not much. I might push a bit harder, but all in all, this was a good swim.

I took my time in transition. One nice thing was the wetsuit strippers. They did a good job getting my wetsuit off. I was annoyed that the guy next to me kind of messed up my area and I had to struggle a bit to get my bike out. Also, My new water bottle cage on my seat was a bit high and did not come off the rack cleanly. It was a long single file trek out of transition and I was blocked by a bunch of walkers - just like last year. this probably cost me 20-30 seconds.

I did not transition practice. I probably could have shaved 30-60 seconds without too much trouble, but I was not worried about it for this race.

My goal was to stay comfortable during the bike segment and I pretty much did this. I was in zone 2 over 755 of the time and the rest in zone 3, mostly on uphills. In hindsight, I drank more than I should have and I should have had my Gatorade Endurance more dilute. About half way through the bike I started to feel a bit sick to my stomach and this progressed as i proceeded. I kept up my normal drinking routine, but it was raining and I took in more that I needed to. I relieved myself twice on the bike and once again in T2. I switched from Gatorade to mostly water for the second half and did take a Stinger gel. I can't complain too much since this was my PR time for the distance, but it would have been nice to have been feeling better.

Refine my nutrition strategy. I think I should have lees concentrated drink and have water only for the first 30 minutes or so of the bike. I buddy of mine says he likes to take some solid nutrition about 30 minutes into the bike. I'm not sure if I want to do that or not.

I was bottlenecked in T2 like in T1 with people walking their bikes. I managed to finish behind several people, since the Olhy was now overlapping with the HIM. I wasn't too worried about it. It was still pouring rain and my transition area was a mess. Someone had shifted the plastic I had over my stuff and my shoes were soaked. I took my time and didn't worry about how much time I was taking.

Practice this transition before the race.

My stomach got more unset the farther I got into the run. the first 6-7 miles or so weren't too bad, but things got progressively worse from there. I managed to keep a reasonable pace except for mile 11 that had a bit more uphill grades. For the last 3 miles my stomach was in real distress and my goal was to not walk. My HR stayed in zone 1 the entire way, and if it were not for my stomach, I could have maintained a much better pace. I carried my own Gatorade Endurance, but part way through I dumped it out and switched to sipping water, although I was not able to drink very much due to nausea. That being said, I did maintain an average pace better than my target pace.

Get my nutrition figured out. It would be nice to have a race of this distance and not feel sick. I've had issues for all e of the HIMs I've done, although this one was bar far the best.

I was feeling very ill after the race, but i new I needed to get something in me. Since I didn't drink as much on the run and the rain stopped and the humidity was high, i was concerned with dehydration. I grabbed a Pepsi and sat down and drank it very slowly. when I finished it, I had a bottle of water and a couple slices of pizza, although I really was not hungry at all. I managed to keep things down.


I think I drank too much on the bike and my Gatorade needed to be less concentrated. I was feeling pretty sick for the second half of the run but managed to keep running the entire distance.


When I got back to the lake place at lake Michigan, I took a shower, drank some water, and went to bed. I got up after a couple hours and had a headache and my stomach was still uneasy. I ordered a 14" pizza and ate 3/4 of is and the headache and nausea went away. I do not think I was too dehydrated.

This was my best raced by 18 minutes for a HIM, but I could have done quite a bit better. We'll see how the next one goes.