The swim was intimidating. Lake Michigan was warmer than expected. The waves of the day before had settled, but it was still a constant up and down. The rolling start eliminated the ability for a pre-race warmup as you needed to stay in line for over 45 minutes from the race start until your projected swim time group went. It did reduce swim start congestion. I had to pee the entire swim, but had to wait until the end to do so, as I needed to start and adjust.

Attack a bit more and not be so intimidated by the big lake swim.

This seemed to take forever. I had gels in my shoes. I had a hard time getting my bike unracked after hanging my wetsuit on the bar. The lack of wetsuit strippers was unexpected. The run up the beach through the sand was also tough.

I'm not sure, but this is too slow.

The roads on the course were quite rough. The course had more hills than I expected. I'm not really sure why I was so much slower than Rev3.

This is a long transition that is really narrow. I had to wait behind a guy who was moving quite slowly up the aisle. I also used the portalett in transition.

This is almost identical to Rev3. I guess this is what my current fitness level will allow.

I need to regain my fitness from a couple of years ago.

I went to the food tent to get some pizza. Then I brought my gear to the car and picked up the girls before we returned to the race site to wait for Kristen to finish.


Mostly my current fitness level.


Overall, this was a good Ironman 70.3 race. The Lake Michigan swim was intimidating, but fun. The roads on the bike course were rough, but as expected for the Midwest. The course was not as interesting as I had hoped. The run course was fine with a couple of large hills. They could have done a bit more. It seems that this was a bit "Ironman Lite" with no wetsuit strippers and fewer run aid stations than typical. It was good to do a race in my home state.