Oliver Half Ironman

Okay, so, things went pretty well yesterday. Essentially I had nothing to compare it to as my only other recent triathlon was half the distance (Shawnigan Lake Olympic). I had a soft goal of sub 6 hours, but my primary goal was to pay close attention to monitoring my heart rate and nutrition...Ironman will be very unpleasant if I don't learn to cram all that stuff down my gullet! :)
So, the times: overall 5:39:12. Swim (2km) was 38:08. Bike (93km) was 2:58:54. Run (21.1 km) was 1:55:42.
The swim was okay, a bit rough at times as I was mid-pack and so eventually we caught up with the back of the first wave of men and the fast bastards from the wave after us caught up with us around the same time. I sucked in a lot of water, but I tried to think of it as pre-bike hydration. Came out feeling good, unsure of my total time at that point, but headed straight for the wetsuit strippers only to get elbowed out of the way by some dude from the wave ahead of us....forget your manners buddy?? Oh, that's okay, pretty sure you'll have plenty of time to mull it over on your leisurely 4 hour bike ride...I'll remind you when I pass you too...ON MY 3 HOUR RIDE!! - guys hate it when chicks are faster - muwahaha. The 4 minute run to transition was a bit long for my liking, but we all had to do it and it gave Jeff extra time to heckle me and take the dreaded photos.


The bike was all about watching my heart rate and sticking to the nutrition plan. mmmmm, salt tabs and chocolate gel....mmmmm. Things went well and as our coach predicted, lots of hot doggers passed me initially as I sat back and let my heart rate come down and took in some fluids and "food". The second lap was faster than the first as I'd settled into things now and shirked the hippy biker that figured he could do a half ironman on water alone....I'm not an elitist and of course am still a newbie, but this dummy was surging and dropping off every 5 minutes. Our leap frogging lasted for the first lap, but after I passed him on the second lap I never saw him again. This all made me really glad our coach has been drumming proper nutrition and pacing into my head since day one! Came off the bike in just under 3 hours and felt good for the run.

I still dislike running, but was surprised that my slow pace (this is how I perceive it anyway) of 5:30/km was enough to pass most people. I kept a close eye on my heart rate and focused on hydrating and staying pain free. Things felt good the first lap and I decided to take the plunge and make the experimental switch from my sports drink to flat Coke for the final 10km. It was exactly how they say, the sugar rush was freakin awesome! I stayed on Coke and water for the entire last lap of the run and felt good. I saw our coach several times during the run, but at the 4km to go mark he yelled and told me to push the pace for the final 4km...guess I wasn't going fast enough for his liking...damn, shoulda sprinted by him and slowed down afterward ;) On the final 1km stretch to the finish line I saw a few people from our triathlon club and they all seemed pleasantly shocked to see me finishing so soon....hey, I didn't think I would either!! :)

Feeling really good about Ironman. I have nothing to prove except that all this time spent training and money spent buying spandex hasn't been for naught.