Swim Course (1500M): 28:44
Bike Course (40K): 1:07:47
Run Course (10K): 1:06:45
The race went really well….okay, 2/3rd’s of the race went well:
SWIM
No major issues with the swim. Actually, the swim was rather peaceful. Other than
at the start, I rarely hit another swimmer. I actually stopped to make sure I didn’t take a wrong turn. It appeared that many of the swimmers were taking an outside line, while I took the inside line. Worked out great for me. After the turn, the sun made it very difficult to site the swim exit. The swim exit was maybe 10 feet away from swim start. So there were moments where I saw swimmers getting in the way of those starting their swim. With the sun and the exit close to the start, it was easy to cross paths. The major take-away I have from the swim is my pacing. Although I was three minutes faster than last year, I still exited the swim feeling like I could have given a better effort. I need to get in more open-water swims so I can work on my pacing.
BIKE
The bike went fantastic as I was almost three minutes faster than last year. Last year I had a Felt road bike, this year I had a Felt triathlon bike with disc rear wheel. I was extremely comfortable in the aero position, although my butt really started to hurt on the way back in. Seriously started to hurt. As a matter of fact, it kept me off the saddle for four days after the triathlon. I was more concerned about my neck and arms, not my butt. I need to work on a solution for that. Although I don’t own an aero helmet, I did tape up the vents. I was concerned this would cause me to over-heat, but there were no issues with that (88 degrees during the bike). Actually, the taped vents removed all wind noise so it was a very quiet ride.
Much like the swim, I finished the bike with some energy left in the tank. Although I was never passed on the bike, looking at my data, I spent equal time in HR zone 3 (tempo) and zone 4 (steady state). Even though I need to pace myself for the run, there is still some capacity to increase my zone 4 time.
RUN
Do I really need to talk about the run? Not only did the wheels fall off, but the entire machine imploded. I was one
minute slower this year than last year. My pace exceeded 10 minutes, which is disgusting when compared to my 8.5 minute goal. I just had nothing left. It wasn’t a HR issue since most of my time was in zone 3. It was a muscular endurance issue. I felt like I was dragging bricks. I was completely miserable out there. It’s easy to blame the 90 degrees, and no doubt that was a factor, but it’s also my conditioning. This will be my number one focus as I train for Whirlpool Ironman in August. TRANSITION
Last years transition area sucked. It was ridiculously long. This year was a little better. The area for moving around was very narrow, but during the race not much of an issue for me. I had zero issues transitioning from sport to sport. There is no doubt room to shave some time off, but overall I’m happy with how it went. Summary
When I crossed the finish line, I never wanted to do a triathlon again, and most certainly not Whirlpool Ironman. This race destroyed my confidence. However a couple days later, I recovered from that. I am determined to conquer the race. I will scale back some of my other mountain bike races and focus on my bike/run transition. My other goal is to shed about 10 pounds to a more appropriate race weight. By no means am I over-weight, as my body fat is at 14% (May), but I’d like to really lean up.
Other than the run issue, I really enjoyed the race. It’s hard not too. It’s easily one of the most organized race I’ve ever participated in.
More pictures on Flickr
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