Ironman Calgary 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Pretty decent for my ability. Would almost say the water was comfortable, with the wetsuit. Navigated well for first half, and began to break down on the way back in. Goggles gave problems for 80% of the swim (Not sealing well). Did a few backfloat/ adjustment moves. Squeeze of people at the end coming into the boat ramp.

Tighten up goggles before starting. Swim was not bad for Ghost Lake- I just need to focus on my swimming in general for next season.

Wetsuit strippers were great. Swapped over quickly. Did not like having to carry shoes out past transition. We were not allowed to leave shoes clipped in and I did not want to run on my cleats. My feet got covered in sand/ gravel because of the wet weather etc. but this did not affect my feet over the course of the bike. Maybe this was a poor decision, but I did not get punished for it.

Not too much.

Very nice ride, and overall pretty easy ride. There were a couple of climbs, but overall the bike went pretty fast. Road surface varied but it was overall very good. I only used aid station 1, as I packed enough fluid to get me through.

Know the whole course. I rode 60% of it a couple of weeks ago, but I thought there was another big climb near the end. It never happened, so I saved that energy for nothing (OK- maybe for the run). Did not know where T2 was, so I was not ready for the dismount at the end. Thinking of getting a different gear cluster for the rear so I can spin up the larger hills.

It was OK. I bought Body Glide, but have yet to use it. Bought a race number belt, and that worked well. Volunteers were there to help pack up gear, but I packed most of it myself.

Running in barefeet off bike was good. Took the time to make sure the shoes were balanced and would not catch on the ground as I ran.

Know when to prepare to dismount. It was a long straight section, so maybe I was just being dense.

Overall, pretty good run. Felt like I had cramps off the start but I decided to push through. Did not use all the aid stations, and ran through them this time (as opposed to the Desert Half). I did walk briefly at around 15K to have a gel and wash it down properly with water. Last 2K I was holding a good 10K pace to bring it home. This felt very good.

Still need to figure out the issue with the cramps.
More brick training.
Concentrate on training for speed with my running.

Grabbed a turkey sub and went to find the wife and kids. Grabbed sushi and a Tim Hortons (which I was craving since Cochrane!!!) and then went home and jumped in the tub with one of the kids.


Still have some creakiness from the Desert Half.
Swim is still the major weak point.
Still getting familiar with the effort needed to complete the distance. Need to figure out how to deplete the tank at race end, rather than having a big store of leftover energy.


Dissapointed with food tent. Powerbar was a major sponsor and they were great to provide gel, but more and more people are pushing on the "post activity" meal as being critical. Where were the PowerBar protein recovery bars? Fruit? Chocolate Milk? Anything? I had a bag of chips and a sub. That was a very strange post race offering.

I would have liked some more freebies in the race package. Prefer tech shirt to a cotton T-shirt.

Overall- entry fees were (relatively) high, race was well run and there was not a lot of extra stuff beyond the race itself added on. Volunteers were great and everything was well organized.