I chose Beach2Battleship in Wilmington, NC as the venue for my first Iron distance triathlon based on a number of factors. First, the location is much less likely to experience hot weather on race day, as opposed to Ironman Florida, which is on the same date. The course is known to be more or less flat and the swim takes place in the a channel of the Intracoastal Waterway where the tide is usually coming in at the start of swim, so swim times are generally a little shorter. Since swimming is my weakest discipline, I figured that this was probably the best event for me for a fall race. Factor in that my training essentially fell apart during the summer (after being sent twice to Hungary on business) and a course with no real hills or heat, combined with a bit of a current on the swim, and I had the perfect venue for my first Ironman triathlon.

Having arrived in Wilmington, NC and checking in at packet pickup on Thursday, Jen and I went to the athlete's meeting and then back to the hotel to set up my transition bags and special needs bags. I had organized all of these items at home, but felt the need to walk through it all again now that I was onsite — maybe it was nerves — before bagging the items up and taking them to the drop-off location. It was difficult to decide what I needed to take since the air temperature would be cooler than I was used to swimming or biking in so I didn't have a lot of context on which to make decisions about gear needs. Once completed, I racked the bike and headed over to T1 to drop everything off.

Nutrition Plan

Nutrition is another area that I wished I had been more prepared for as the race grew nearer. A friend of mine preached Hammer products to me and a few weeks before the event, I learned that the aid stations on the course would all have Hammer products. I used the BikeMS (event for Multiple Sclerosis Society) as a test run for my nutrition and was very pleased with the Perpetuem product.

My day would start with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a 20 oz. (roughly) Gatorade for breakfast. I would mix a bottle of HEED to sip on during the pre-race hours and up until the start of the swim. On the bike, I would consume two three-hour bottles of Perpetuem (two scoops per hour, based on my body weight of 180 pounds) and the occasional solid food if I felt so inclined. I mostly carried solid foods (Cliff Shot Blocks) for the taste rather than as an active part of my nutrition plan. I also carried another peanut butter and jelly sandwich in case I felt like eating. I did not count on this nutrition, but I knew that my stomach could handle it with no problems. I would stop taking on any solids at least one hour or 20 miles before the end of the bike course, and my goal was to have the last of Perpetuem consumed about this time as well, moving on to only water for hydration purposes.

Once on the run, I planned to use Hammer gels every 45-50 minutes as needed, making sure to always have at least two with me in the pocket of my triathlon jersey. I actually found that during the run, I consumed only four Hammer gels, though I took on several cups of warm chicken broth and flat cola, as well as several pretzels. I felt at the start of the run as though my body had started metabolizing fats for energy (i.e. hitting the "wall") so I had an unplanned Cliff Shot Block as I came out of T2.

Pre-Race

I had difficulty sleeping the night before the race, much like before my first marathon. Oddly, I slept fine for every marathon after that one, so I'm sure this is just a "first race" nerves issue. Regardless, after lying down at 8:00PM, it was after 1:00AM when I fell asleep. Given that my wakeup time was 4:00AM, I knew this would likely come back to haunt me later.

I got up at 4:00AM and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a water bottle of Gatorade while I got dressed. During this time, I mixed two bottles of Perpetuem for the bike and mixed a bottle of HEED to sip on before the swim start. Heading out 5:00AM, I met up with my training buddy, Rob, down in the lobby to ride in to the transition area where his wife, Brandi, was going to drop us off. As Jen walked me down to the lobby, she handed me a booklet and told me to read it once I was waiting to go to the swim start.

We drove the 10-minute drive over to the transition area and went through body-marking and I took my water bottles to the bike. I was cold, despite wearing a pair of warm-up pants, a pair of thick socks, and a sweatshirt. I got into my wetsuit and took out the booklet Jen had given me. She had asked a number of friends to write words of encouragement, personal stories, or words of advice, and compiled them in a booklet for me to read. Some were runners I had coached in the Team In Training program, others were friends from work, many were fellow members of the Hammerheads Triathlon Club. A couple of them were personal heroes that I've admired since I started racing. By the time I was on the shuttle arriving at the swim start in Wiltshire Beach, I was teary-eyed, but felt like I had a hundred friends with me as I started the biggest challenge of my life.

Swim

The swim is a mass start from the beach in Wrightsville and the full-distance event participants start at 7:00AM, an hour and a half ahead of the half-distance participants. There was a camera crew following around behind Jaron Tate, who was apparently a contestant on some season of The Biggest Loser. The air temperature was around 36F and while the water was certainly warmer, the sand on which we were standing was very cold and made my feet hurt. When it was time for the start, we all headed into the water, which was pleasant with a wetsuit. I saw one guy with only a pair of triathlon shorts - there's one in every bunch, I suppose.

Once in the water, I was actually very comfortable. I focused on swimming intervals of freestyle and breaststroke for as much of the first half of the swim as possible. I hadn't been in the pool since late May or early June (five months) and the swim went similar to how I expected. I swam most of the second half of the course in breaststroke, coming out of the water in 1:17.

The swim ends at a marina dock in the channel and athletes run about a quarter-mile to the transition area. A number of athletes stashed shoes just off the dock so that they could wear them across the marina parking lot and down the road to T1, but I didn't bother doing this. I figured that while the ground would be cold, but it actually wasn't bad at all. I bypassed the wetsuit strippers because I am pretty good at getting out of it on my own and didn't really want to lie on the cold ground.

I saw my wife and her family (her mother had come down from New Jersey to watch and her brother and his girlfriend drove over from Charlotte) as I ran down the road, which made me happy.

Bike

Heading into the changing tent in T1, I grabbed my T1 bag, which had all of my swim-to-bike gear. I had packed cold-weather gear based on the forecast, so I ended up donning a long-sleeve running shirt under my cycling jersey, tights over my cycling shorts (I opted to wear cycling shorts rather than triathlon shorts, which I wouldn't do on a shorter course) and a fleece-lined skullcap. I tossed my wetsuit and swim suit into the bag with my cap and goggles, left them for a volunteer, and headed out to get my bike.

I headed out onto the bike course feeling good and looking forward to the next six hours. The weather forecast was promising with a slight head wind of 0-2 miles per hour, which you would hardly feel. About the time we were turning around to head back into Wilmington, the wind was forecasted to increase to 5-7 miles per hour, making for a nice tail wind to help push me back home. [average info]

I saw Jen and her family around mile 25 and stopped for about one minute to say 'hello', get a kiss for good luck, taking time to brag about how I was totally going to average a faster speed than I had originally planned due to the wind. Heading off as quickly as I had stopped, I got back on the road and settled in for the ride.

When you're in an Iron distance triathlon, you aren't allowed to draft (except at Ironman Florida — from what I've seen, it must be allowed there) and you are basically alone for the 112 miles. My point is not that this isn't OK, but that there's nothing to do except watch the scenery of the bike course and stare at your cycling computer. I use a Garmin Edge 705 which gives me tons of data while I ride, so I spent much of the time doing math and realizing what great time I was making. I think this probably helped me ignore the fact that there was more than a 0-2 mph head wind, as it was probably more like 3-5 mph.

As we cycled across the northern part of the course to head back south to Wilmington, I stopped at Bike Special Needs to change out anything that I had packed for the bike course. This bag is intended to hold any special items that are available in the aid stations on the bike course. I packed basic First Aid items (Alleve, sun block, Band-Aids, etc.) as well as an extra water bottle with extra Perpetuem nutrient solution (in case I dropped and spilled one of the bottles on my bike) and a HeadSweats cool cap. I traded my fleece-lined skullcap for the cool cap and headed off, only staying about a minute. It's worth noting that some of the volunteers from the Navy were on the course just before this stop with two-way radios and when I pulled up to the aid station, someone was calling me over to them and holding my bag out to me before I even unclipped from my pedals. The volunteer support in this event was absolutely stellar.

As I was turning south toward Wilmington, I noticed not only that the wind was quite faster than 5-7 mph, but that it now seemed to be coming out of the south. I continued to power into the wind hoping that it would slow or change directions again, but it didn't. Suddenly I had a lot of time to watch my speed and do more math. It wasn't pleasant as I figured out that I was actually going to go closer to seven hours than to six. Every flag that I cycled past was standing straight out and facing toward the direction from which I was coming - well, except for the many Confederate flags which were all laying limp.

This is about the time that my lack of sleep from the prior night came back to haunt me. I could feel myself getting sleepy despite the adrenaline of the event. There were times that I recall wishing I could just close my eyes for a few minutes, despite the fact that I was cycling. I felt as though I should be at the end of a really bad, long day, rather than finishing a bike course and preparing to start a marathon. Ugh, a marathon.

I think the biggest hit to the psyche is the math. I got so excited that I was going to come in faster than I expected that dealing with the wind and recalculating the time took a real toll on my mental state. There were times that a gust of wind would slow me to 14.5 mph and really nothing I could do about it. I saw a couple of groups go by that were in outright pelotons and it made me furious. Not only would they keep their time low, but they would expend less energy than I would even at the speed I was travelling. Regardless, I kept my head down and continued pedaling until I saw my wife at mile 107.

Seeing my wife again, even though only for a few seconds, helped and I headed out to finish the last few miles of the bike course and start on the dreaded marathon. I did not want to admit to my wife that I secretly worried I would walk the entire marathon. The last mile of the bike course was a monster bridge that was not only long but quite steep. It was amazing how miserable those few minutes felt. I turned the corner and headed into T2 (at the Battleship Park where the USS North Carolina is a floating museum), handing off my bike to a volunteer, grabbing my bike-to-run bag, and heading into the change tent. My final time on the bike was 6:50, almost an hour longer than I had at one point thought.

Run

I changed out of cycling shorts and a jersey (including sleeves and tights) and put on triathlon shorts and a triathlon singlet. I took time to dry my feet completely and put on fresh socks, and then put on my running shoes. I took a couple of Alleve since I was starting to feel a headache coming on during the last hour or so of the bike and headed out of the tent. My official time for T2 was 14:24. I didn't feel like I took any longer in this transition than the one earlier that day.

I ran out of transition feeling basically like I had hit a wall. Unlike in my first couple of marathons when I would get grumpy and miserable, I typically just get hazy vision and a craving for greasy food when I hit a wall these days. No sooner was I out of T2 than I started to feel this way. I stopped briefly in a portable bathroom and made my way out of the Battleship Park onto the run course.

The run course consists of two loops of an out-and-back course, so you run out 6.5 miles and back (where the Run Special Needs bags are handed out) and then do it again to finish up the marathon. Miles 1 and 2 are both huge bridges (who does that to people?!) and by definition, so were miles 12 and 12, and 25 and 26. It was pretty miserable climbing the bridges and I probably spent more time at the first aid station than I should have. Once I got something cold to drink and started running again, I began to feel better.

Throughout the run, I continually felt better and better. The first loop was a little warm since the sun was still high, though I knew the temperatures would drop quickly as the day went progressed. I made the turnaround in mile 6 and headed back toward the midpoint, slowing enough to tell my wife that I would maintain a 3:00 half-marathon pace at the slowest, putting me through the Finish Line in less than six hours. It dawned on me as I left her that perhaps I was being a tad ambitious that my pace would remain the same (or close to the same) as it was at only nine or ten miles into the course. One thing that continued to resonate in my mind was that only did a couple of long runs since starting my training for this event in May and the longer of those two runs was ten miles. I worried that things could still fall apart on the run.

The temperature was dropping quickly and I was getting cold (I had put on a pair of running gloves not long after turning around at mile 6), so I grabbed some items from my Run Special Needs bag. I pulled on a pair of sleeves, stuffed a knit cap in my triathlon singlet pocket, and ditched my visor and sunglasses. Heading back out, I decided that I would start taking chicken broth at the aid stations, the thought of which had completely repulsed me prior to the race. I learned quickly that as the evening got colder, the chicken broth got better. I had only taken a couple of small cups of HEED on the run, so starting on the second half of the course, I took a cup of chicken broth, a cup of flat cola, and two pretzels at almost every aid station. I ran through a couple of them without stopping.

As I made my way through the last leg of the marathon, I noticed that my run intervals were getting significantly faster, usually at about 9:45/mi or so. During this six-mile stretch, I was able to make up about ten minutes of time on the course and was ahead of my mental schedule as I headed down the second of the two bridges toward the Battleship Park. As I turned into the park, a couple women from the UNC track team joined me and told me they were going to run in with me for the last quarter-mile and continued to say encouraging things to me as they did. At one point I told them that I needed to walk, but realized as soon as I slowed that I actually needed to keep running. We all laughed about that and as I headed into the Finish Chute, they congratulated me again and then broke off to go back to their waiting area for another runner.

As I ran the last 100 yards or so, I could hear my wife and our family screaming for me. I actually felt better at this point than any other time during the run, and probably could have gone on a bit longer, I think. That said, I was damn glad that it was over.

I came in at 5:48 for the marathon, certainly slower than my previous standalone marathons, but given that I started running approximately 115 miles into the course, I'm fine with the time.

Post-Race

After gathering my transition bags, we headed back to the hotel so I could take a quick shower and put on compression gear. We caught a water taxi that left within minutes of our arrival at the dock and dropped us at the hotel dock only moments later. The post-race transportation was apparently a problem at times last year (the inaugural event) but things seemed to flow very smoothly this year.

We went out for Italian and I had wonderful lasagna that I couldn't eat more than a quarter of for some reason. I stayed in compression gear as we came back to the hotel and was asleep in less than a minute after lying down. I remember telling Jen after my shower that I felt no worse than after running a marathon, opting to not even take an ice bath, which I usually do after any run longer than 18 or 20 miles. I woke up the following morning and was trying to make my way to the bathroom when I realized that I didn't quite feel as great as I did when I came back to the hotel. I was pretty sure my quads would explode before I made it across the room, but that soreness wore off over the next few days and I was pretty much back to normal by Wednesday.

Final Times

Also of notable interest, the elevation gain on the bike was 1,219 feet and I burned approximately 6,775 calories. On the run, the gain was 3,561 feet and I burned another 2,728 calories.

About the Race

One last word about Setup Events and the Beach2Battleship triathlon. This was my first Iron distance event, but certainly not my first triathlon. To date, this is the best run event that I've seen with excellent support from the company that runs it and the most fantastic set of volunteers I've ever had the pleasure of coming across. There were two volunteers for every three athletes and it showed. I would highly recommend this race for anyone looking to do their first full or half-Ironman event and would also urge anyone interested in their other venues (Setup presents approximately 150 events per year) to consider doing those as well.

This is my first time doing the event as I just started cycling in November 2008. It is one of the main training rides for my upcoming Ironman event a month later. My goal is to cycle down to Daytona and run five miles before joining the festivities that will be ongoing at the time. I hope to finish the run without vomiting, hitchiking, or dying.

The BikeMS event is first and foremost a fundriasing effort. It raises money to fund research to cure MS and my personal goal is to raise $1000 by September 26. I can't do this alone — I need your help. To donate, please visit http://bikems.davidcarr.org

I am riding with my friend and co-worker, Chris, who has participated in this ride for many years. He is a close friend (one of the groomsmen in my wedding) and an avid cyclist. He was also my boss for several years. He and I have been riding together to train for this event for a couple of months now.

I believe in 'racing with a purpose' and while this isn't technically a race, I am riding in memory of my grandmother who died when I was six. She had suffered with MS for several years and had lost part of the use of her arm. I am also riding in honor of a friend from high school, Diana.

Please take a moment to donate to this very worthy cause and check back here after the event for pictures and an update.

After falling asleep with no problem around 9:00, the alarm went off at 5:15 and I got up to make a bagel with peanut butter. I tried to get some Gatorade down with it but wasn't all that thirsty. I grabbed my bag and headed down to the transition area for body marking.

After getting my number printed on my arms and legs, I headed into the transition area to check my bike and lay out my gear. I like to lay my gear out, walk through using it once, and then lay it out again. It's not that the order of things or their orientation ever changes, but I just like to do this. It's become something of a ritual for me I suppose. I took my empty transition bag and my swim gear (cap and goggles) and headed back up to the hotel room, stopping to say 'hello' to my Hammerhead friends that were there for the race and wish them luck.

The swim start is a running start in waves by age group. The first wave was at 6:15 and mine was not until 7:00 or so. Jen was awake by the time I got back up to the hotel room and had gotten dressed and gathered her camera equipment. We headed down to watch the swim starts and bumped into the rest of the Hammerheads along the way.

The water temperature was 78° so we were able to wear wetsuits — thankfully.

After a few minutes of swimming out through the waves and back to shore a few times, I was warmed up and ready for my swim wave to start. I watched a few of my friends in the waves before mine head out, gave Jen a kiss, and walked to the swim start corral. The buoys didn't really look too far out — I figured this couldn't be as bad as I had thought during training.

Swim

When it was time for my wave to start, the group of 40 or so of us headed off into the surf and were immediately met by the smell of gas and oil. That's not really what I expected, but givne the number of athletes in the water, the only way to safely manage the swim course was by utilizing jet skis and power boats, both of which were sitting idle (and spewing fumes) during most of the event.

The swim went about as well as I had expected. I stopped going to the pool a couple of months before the race and my only training was a couple of organized ocean swims, which is hardly sufficient. That said, I didn't have high expectations and expected to finish the swim in around 46-48 minutes. I took a watch so that I could monitor my swim time at different points in the course. The course was set up such that you swam out to the 7th bouy on the west side, crossed over to the eastern side of the course and then swam back in past seven bouys on the east side of the course.

I got out to the end of the bouys at just under 29 minutes and crossed over to the return side of the course. It's worth pointing out that all the bouys that didn't look like they were too far out appeared to have drifted farther out to see as I swam toward them. It took me about five minutes to swim over to the return side and start to head back in to shore.

My swimming was as pathetic as I had feared; much of it was in breast- or backstroke. It seems that the discipline where I have the most trouble improving endurance is swimming, yet I pretty clearly avoided the pool for the last couple of months. I don't need to be told that this makes no sense — it's just plain stupid of me. However, I did do fairly well at sighting (keeping an eye on the bouy) and staying on course rather than straying off the shortest path around the bouys. I noticed a couple of guys swim by me with snorkels and I had to resist the urge to drown them.

As I came in to shore, I caught a couple of waves to help me get in easier. I also tried to swim until I could basically touch the bottom with my hands. I didn't realize that there was a sandbar before the water got deep again and then shore, so my smart effort to swim as far as possible (as opposed to trying to walk in waist-deep water was somewhat wasted as I waded from the sandbar (back into deeper water) to the shoreline. Regardless, I came out at about 51 minutes, not too far off from my estimate.

Transition 1

I was able to shed my wetsuit quickly and get into cycling gear within about 3:00 though I did take time to put some sunblock on, which is not something I usually do. I've worked at a few time-saving techniques in transition though I'm mostly concerned about this on short courses. I felt good about my transition time of 5:40 and ran out of T1 ready for the bike portion.

Bike

The out-and-back bike course does a short leg to the east of the transition area and then heads back west through town and then north where it turns around and follows the same route back. One of the roads (338) on which we travel are a little more rough than I would have expected and that was a pretty common complaint with many of the athletes. Fifty-six miles of this take a toll on your wrists and I can't imagine doing the full 112 miles (Ironman Florida is here in November) on these roads.

During the first few miles of the bike, I was a little surprised at how different being wet (from the swim) on the bike affected me. All of my previous triathlons had been in fresh water lakes and my brick workouts that involved an ocean swim did not include timely transitions (i.e. we changed and stood around for a few minutes while everyone got ready) so I wasn't really still dripping with salt water when I got on the bike. It took a few minutes for the salt water to stop running into my mouth, and it was a noticeably different feel on my arms and legs compared to fresh water. Neither of these were a big deal, but the taste of salt water got old pretty quickly.

I took my first gel only a mile or two into the bike portion on the assumption that my reserves were pretty heavily taxed from the swim. I also had two bottles of Gatorade on the bike and started hydrating immediately, partially in hopes of battling the taste of saltwater in my mouth.

As I headed back past the transition area and out onto the better part of the bike course, I tried to settle into a rhythm that would keep me moving along at a good speed but not wear me down too much for the run. I had not swam this distance in training and so I was admittedly less familiar with what to expect from the effort than I should have been.

I hadn't practiced taking water bottles at water stops before, but this came fairly easily for me. It's good that this didn't present a problem, as failing to get water a stop when you're out can ruin the rest of your bike portion (if you don't go back) if it leads to hydration/nutrition issues. I didn't lose more than one or two miles per hour in water stations and was able to get down quite a bit before ditching the bottle. If I had an Aero Drink bottle, I could make better use of the water at stations, or if I had left a botte cage empty, but I didn't think about that. Fortunately, I had enough fluids that by loading up after each water station, my hydration levels were fine. I managed to get two packages of Cliff Shot Blocks down during the bike course, which felt right at the time, but was probably a lot less calories than I should have taken in.

There was a bit of a wind toward the north during the bike course, which caused a few different effects. During the part of the course that parallels the beachline, the side wind felt like a head wind. If you live in a beach area, and since this is the case whether it's coming from the right or left, you know that this feels like a head wind in both directions. Also, the entire second half of the course was to the south so a head wind was present for most of the last hour or so. This gave me a slower average speed during the second half of the bike course with an overall average of 18.37 miles per hour.

Overall, the bike portion went fairly well and I came in at 3:03:41, having told my wife to expect me between 3:00 and 3:30. I was pleased with the time (lower speed goal than what I would have liked) and was ready to head out onto the run and get this over with. I saw my wife as I was coming into the dismount area and hearing her scream at me (she had noticed that I was a bit of ahead of schedule) really helped my energy levels. Looking back at it, there were a lot of spectators there that were cheering for everyone as they came through.

Transition 2

I went into T2 feeling pretty strong and fairly confident that I had enough gas to get through the run. I was able to get to the bike rack and change shoes fairly quickly, trading my spare tire tube in my shirt pocket for a couple of gels, and headed toward the run exit. I failed to add more sunblock, which would later prove to be a mistake. I opted to leave behind my Fuel Belt, as the Gatorade in them was at about the same temperature that I usually drink my coffee. My total time in T2 was 3:38.

Run

The run portion of this race is where everything fell apart for me. There was no shade on the course and while I thought I would be OK with this, it had more of an impact than I thought. I had not been running during the hotter parts of the day and so my body was not at all acclimated to running in the heat. This was May in the Florida panhandle and during the middle of the day. I don't really know what I was thinking.

I've dumped plenty of water over my head to stay cool during runs, especially marathons. I knew I would be dumping water today, but there was one small difference. I was wearing socks that I originally bought for running but now only wear when cycling. They have a little padding on the bottom of them and I never for a second thought they would wick moisture any differently than the other running socks I own. I was wrong. They apparently soak up water, meaning it was pooled at the bottom of my feet.

Between miles 4 and 5, I was on track to come in around 6:15 or 6:20, which was just ahead of my goal. I began to notice that my feet felt gritty, like I had sand in my shoes. I knew from experience that once you begin to feel this, it's already too late. Without a change of socks and with nothing to clean/dry my feet, there was nothing I cold go but keep going.

By mile 7, I had 3-4" blisters on the bottoms of both my feet and could barely walk. Just crossing a speedbump or a scattered pile of pebbles in the road was excrutiating. I was reduced to walking the last six miles of the course on the heels of my feet and moving at about an 18:00 minute/mile pace. There was a state park in the middle of the run course which was the turnaround point — I thought that this meant some shade might be in store — I was wrong. It was a beachfront park that is all sand dunes and blacktop roads. So much for that!

My typical 2:15 to 2:20 half-marathon turned into a three-and-a-half hour nightmare as my head and hands began to fry in the midday Florida sun. I had found an aid station where I could get sunblock, but I was still running at the time and only lathered my arms, not continuing any lower onto my hands.

As I hobbled the last mile or so of the run course, I passed athletes that were leaving the Finish area and many of them had words of encouragement for me. It was helpful to hear that I was almost there and many of them assured me I could make it. About a quarter-mile from the end, I passed my friends, Beth and Kathy, who were walking back to their condo. Beth had experienced a problem during the swim and was not able to compete, whereas Kathy had just finished a while earlier. They encouraged me to keep going and off I went.

As I came into the Finish Line, I saw my wife who was yelling at me and gingerly (as the announcer at the Finish area described it) made my way across the timing mats and on to the volunteers with the medals. I asked one of them where I could find the medical tent and he pointed me in the right direction.

Post-Race

Many of my friends from the Hammerheads Triathlon Club were at the Finish area taking pictures. I missed them by only a few minutes, but was able to talk to a few of them before heading on to have my feet looked at by a nurse. I retreived my bike from transition along the way, as I was pretty sure I would not be able to get shoes back on after I took them off.

The visit to the medical tent didn't really confirm anything surprising — I definitely had big blisters. What I didn't realize was that they probably popped some time in the state park. I was hoping that if I took it easy with my weight distribution, perhaps I could finish without bursting them. I realized later how foolish that line of thought was. The reason they hurt so bad was because they had been popped.

I managed to get down a couple pieces of pizza, three footlong chili dogs, some potato chips, and a soda before feeling like I needed to take a nap. I took a quick shower and passed out within seconds of hitting the pillow.

It goes without saying that when you walk ("stroll" is probably a better descriptor) the run portion of a triathlon, you're not likely to perform all that well in comparison with other athletes. In the swim, I was 110/117 and 925/1045. On the bike, I was 96/117 and 795/1045. In the end, I finished 109/117 in my age group and 902/1045 overall. Certainly not a good ranking within my age group or the overall field of athletes, but given the hellish experience on the run course, I can't be too upset about it. And while it's not the way I would hope anyone's first half-Ironman goes, it certainly means the probability of improving on my next one is rather high.

I can't say that I will come back to race this course again. The timing of the event and location are a bad combination and the effect is measurable at the point in the race when you're most susceptible to overheating. I've heard that Ironman Florida, which takes place in November is much better, but I don't know. I certainly wouldn't do this in May again. The bike and run courses both could have been of better quality, between the bad road surface in the bike portion and the fact that much of the run course was covered in sand or gravel.

I think it's also worth pointing out that we stayed at the Boardwalk Beach Resort, and while it's probably not any worse than the other hotels in the area, we found it to be of much lower quality than we would have expected for the cost per night. It was, however super-convenient for the triathlon itself, as the swim started behind our hotel, the transition area was next to it, and the Finish Line was in front of it.

The third and final stop of the Waldo Triathlon series was March 8 at 9:30AM. This was intended to be my second triathlon, having done the sprint distance in the second stop and now the Olympic (also called international or intermediate) distance for the third stop.

Since I was forced to drop from the second stop last month, this will actually be my first time putting all three sports together into one triathlon event.

Pre-race

We left Jacksonville at 6:00AM to head down to Waldo, which is just north east of Gainesville. Packet pick-up started at 7:00 and it didn't really seem to make sense to stand around for two and a half hours, so we aimed for arrival at 7:30 or shortly thereafter.

Packet pick-up (if you didn't attend the previous afternoon) is on-site near the transition area. The race staff were unable to locate my packet, so they created a couple of makeshift numbers (one for bike, one bib) for me and off I went.

I got a good spot in the transition area (always prefer to be on the last rack off the aisle in the closest row to the bike exit) and set up my gear. I checked the air in my tires and was finished by about 8:15 or so. Since the race didn't start until 9:00, this gave me some time to stand around and relax with my wife and our friend, Tiffany, before donning my wetsuit and heading to the start area.

The swim start for the third stop is a wave start whereas the first two stops use a mass start. There are a couple of reasons they the race director does this. First, being the later event (the first two stops are in January and February), the last stop draws a larger field of athletes. Second, they offer a long course in this stop as opposed to just the sprint and Olympic distance courses in the first two stops. Add to the fact that they run a duathlon and a triathlon event for each distance in this series and they have six races going on at one time. Obviously, that's a lot of moving pieces.

The sprint distance starts in the first wave and then a few minutes later, the Olympic and long distance event start. The start is a wade start, meaning you wade into the water and everyone takes off from essentially a standing position in the water.

The swim went a little better than I had expected. I should preface this by saying that swim is my weakest sport and also the one that I'm having the most challenge focusing on during training. It was obvious in the second stop that the swim is where I need to focus most on my training. In that event, I swam the 750m in about 17:30, so I expected that the 1,500m swim in this event would take me around 36:00. I ended up finishing in about 28:23, however. Most of the swim was still in the backstroke with almost all of the remaining swim in the breaststroke. Very little was in the freestyle, which ultimately is my goal.

I realized while swimming in this event that my problem with the swim portion is that my endurance is not sufficient to space out my breathing enough to synchronize it with my swim strokes. As a result, swimming in the backstroke allows me to breath at the rate I need without screwing up my stroke. I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that this may simply be the product of having smoked for so many years and that it may be a very long road to recovering from it.

Coming out of the swim, I was near the back of pack, as opposed to being in the middle during the second stop. I will touch more on this later in my performance analysis, but the two events had a very different field of athletes. This stop had a couple of very competitive college teams (Virginia Tech and Auburn) that made up a large portion of the field. This is very obvious when looking at the average swim times, bike speeds and transition times.

Transition went well, especially since I didn't have trouble getting my wetsuit off. Being able to feel what your fingers are doing really makes a difference in completing this task. I spent about three minutes in transition and headed out with my bike for the cycle portion.

Bike

I don't think I realized at the start of the bike portion how much the swim had taken out of me. In comparison with my speed on the bike last time, I was more than two and a half miles per hour slower. There was a little bit of a wind this time, but I don't know that it was enough to make too much of a difference. I was riding the triathlon bike this time, and while I don't know that it makes me much faster, it certainly shouldn't make me any slower, and I was certainly averaging a lower speed that most of my training rides on this bike have been lately.

The bike course is fairly flat and is a 6.2-mile out-and-back course. For the Olympic distance, athletes complete two loops of it. I was starting to get tired by the return of the second loop and could feel the slight changes in elevation, even though they were very small.

I think my turns and corners were good, as was my turnaround at the end points. It was easy for me to get back up to speed after each of these.

I had stored a FiberOne bar on my bike prior to the race in case I felt like I needed something to eat. During the first leg of the course, I decided that I should eat something, even if I didn't feel all that hungry. Whether this was a mistake or not, I don't know, but a FiberOne bar was probably not the best choice. Looking back at it, I don't think it really added much value.

Transition again went very well and I was able to change shoes, swap my helmet for a visor and take off pretty quickly, spending about a minute in transition. I ate a gel as I came out and started pulling off my cycling gloves, planning to just store them in the back pocket of my jersey.

My goal on the bike was 18 mph for a time of 1:20 but I came in around 1:23 because I only averaged 17.83 mph. I'm not disappointed with my ride, so much as confused why I didn't perform better. Again, I think it was just from being tired from the swim.

Run

There's no other way to describe the run portion of this race — I bonked only a mile or so into it. I don't know if my problem was the FiberOne bar, or dehydration, or if I was just plain tired. Something was definitely off and I suspect that the combination of swim and bike had taken their toll.

I alternated running and walking through the 6.2-mile course. It was humiliating and discouraging, but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I averaged an embarrasing pace of 11:36 per mile.

My goal for this race was 3:11:05 and my overall time ended up being 3:08:52. While I'm happy with the overall time, I missed some of the specific goals within that time, such as the bike speed and run pace. I exceeded my goals on the swim time as well as times in both T1 and T2.

Post-race Analysis

As I mentioned earlier, the field of athletes in this event was significantly different from the first and second stops in this series. For example, a large portion of the Olympic distance event was comprised of college athletes who are part of the Virginia Tech or Auburn triathlon teams.

I projected a longer period of time to complete the swim than what I actually needed, based on my performance during the swim portion of the February event. In that event, I outswam 45% of my fellow athletes in the sprint distance. For that matter, my Olympic distance time in the March event would have beat 60% of the athletes in February. However, with the college teams added to the mix, the average swim time for the sprint dropped from 17:45 to 12:35. My time from February would have only beat about 33% of the athletes in the March event. Similarly, more than 85% of the athletes against whom I swam in the Olympic distance this past weekend had faster times than mine.

In reviewing the bike speeds, I was much slower in the March event than I have been during training lately. I suspect that this has to do with underestimating the toll that the swim would take on me, and will demand some changes to the way in which I train for Gulf Coast Triathlon in May.

In February, I averaged 20.65 mph on the bike, in comparison with only 17.83 mph in March. As would be expected due to the different field of athletes, the average speed on the sprint distance changed from 16.36 to 17.94 mph, whereas the Olympic distance saw a change from 18.88 to 19.83 mph. My average speed in February was the fastest of the athletes in the sprint, and faster than 85% of those in the Olympic distance. In March, I was faster than only 47.83% and 23.88% of the athletes in the sprint and Olympic distance events respectively.

Even the average transition times saw a similar reduction, with T1 dropping from almost four minutes to just over two minutes. There was a much smaller change in T2 times as it changed from 1:30 to about 1:20.

In retrospect, I believe that what happened is that I used more energy on the swim than I expected, which was primarily the result of insufficient training in my weakest sport. In turn, this caused me to ride much slower on the bike and as I tried to control this by pushing harder. Despite the increased force, I was unable to sustain my normaml speed, which likely also caused me to run out of energy when I transitioned into the run. There are also some lessons to be learned about nutrition and hydration here, though again, these are lessons with which I should already be familiar.

Although my time was with the acceptable range for my goals, there were several failures in different parts of my performance that could have (and undoubtedly should have) been avoided. Regardless, the end result is still an acceptable time for an Olympic distance and my first triathlon.

→ See also: 2009 Waldo Triathlon - Stop 2

Pre-race

It would be easier to simply tell you what went RIGHT today. For starters, I forgot my USAT membership card, which means I had to buy a one-day membership for $10. I was able to email my receipt to the race director, so that worked out OK.

Then I realized I had picked up the wrong pair of cycling shoes. I brought the size 47s with no cleats, rather than the size 48s I replaced them with and on which I mounted the cleats that clip into my pedals. After some deliberation, I decided to just do the bike portion in my running shoes and hope I didn't slip off the pedals too much. I can tell you after today that this is harder than one would expect. It takes a lot more effort to push the pedals when you're used to pushing/pulling. Lesson 1: Check equipment on more time before leaving the house.. and move the old shoes where they can't end up in the mix again.

I should go ahead and mention that a few moments before the swim portion started, the air tempterature was 38F degrees. I had a wetsuit, but seriously, let's call it what it is. Even in a wetsuit, that's pretty miserable. The swim actually went OK, despite the fact that nobody could put their face in the water during the swim and everyone felt they had problems with this leg of the event. I came out of the water at about 17:30, somewhere in the middle of the pack. I couldn't feel my fingers or feet. Lesson 2: Get used to the velcro release that holds the wetsuit strap in place -- it's harder to open than I thought.

Transition went well. I decided to forgo my cycling gloves and the long-sleeve pullover I brought. I also opted not to put on the helmet liner I brought. Only by luck did these decisions turnout to be wise, as the temperature warmed faster than I expected. Lesson 3: Don't make clothing decisions in transition based on the feel of the air after swimming in cold weather as your body is certainly playing tricks on you. If you made a pre-race decision to wear something, wear it.

I couldn't see squat coming out of transition because putting on sunglasses that are sitting in 38F air only causes them to fog up immediately. Nothing to learn from this, but still noteworthy.

Bike

Once I got on the bike, I realized that I would be warm enough once I got up to speed and kept moving. This was about .3 miles into the bike portion. It wasn't until .4 miles into it that I got the flat tire. Everyone was nice and asked if I had a spare as they went by. I had tubes, CO2, etc. and was back on the bike in about 4 minutes.

After turning around at the halfway point, I started doing the math and realized that even without being clipped in, I was averaging about 18-19 miles per hour. Despite everything stacked against me, I may actually end up with a decent first race.

I was still a little over 3 miles from the transition area when I noticed the bubble on the side of my tire. I dismounted to check it and within a second or two the tire blew. It sounded like a gunshot and I'm pretty certain I would have wet myself had this been a surprise. Nothing to do now but walk the bike three miles back to the race area. Nothing to learn from this -- it was unavoidable and out of my control.

Fortunately, someone with a pick-up truck was on their way to the race area and picked me up. It was nice to not have to carry the bike all the way back.

So, that's my first triathlon. And my first DNF in a race of any type. Oh well, what can you do? I'm sure the March event will go better. It can't go much worse... can it?

→ See also: 2009 Waldo Triathlon - Stop 3