The water was great - much warmer than the air temp. We were told that we had a 30 min cut-off to complete the swim. Some of us considered staying in the water the full 30 minutes just to stay warm. A little confusion for the second wave of swimmers when the RD started yelling, "Get out of the water! Get out of the water, right now!" After his pre-race joke about getting all the alligators out the day before, kind of wondered if maybe they missed a couple ;) Turns out some of the long course participants were in the water when they were not supposed to be...confusion was cleared up and we were on our way. Besides the fact that I started in the back and did not start swimming until after everyone else had taken off (I am not a fan of the beating that comes from wave starts) I had a really great swim. This is relative...I am still a slow swimmer. I was pleased that I did not have any panic attacks in the water as I have had in the past.

I still had quite a bit of swim energy left at the end...probably could have gone a little faster.

I don't use any of the fancy shoes or pedals, so T1 is always slow for me. I was trying to make sure my socks stayed dry...this seems rather silly in hindsight considering the weather conditions!

I had not done any riding in the rain during training. I typically stay indoors during flash floods, so I was a little concerned about the bike portion of the race. I rode very cautiously - my goals were as follows: don't crash and don't have a blow-out. So I will call this a succusseful event for me because I met both goals. My original goal was to have a pace somewhere between 18-20 mph - the RD advised us to throw our speed goals out the window considering the weather. Safety was goal #1. I enjoyed singing to myself all the hits from the past that included lyrics about rain...such as "I Love a Rainy Night" by Eddie Rabbitt. A little tip about riding in the rain - the faster you ride the more the rain hurts.

Order up some sunshine :)

My legs were pretty jelly-like coming off the bike. I had not really done any brick work in the last two months - so running through T2 was a little rough.

I felt pretty good, had lots of fun running through all the water and splashing. I made sure to drink a lot while on the bike so I would be hydrated for the run. It is easy to forget to drink enough when it is not hot out, but I did ok with this. I tend to get pretty bad side cramps if I drink while I run so I was happy to have avoided this during the event. It was kind of a bummer that the finish clock was not out, so I was not sure what my time was for a while - I suppose there were some electrocution concerns.

More brick work-outs so that I can increase my run speed after biking.

Sloshed through the mud to the food tent. Ate some cold pizza and a yummy plum.


Rain


I like Ironhead races...more about the sport than all the fluff. The race was delayed a little because of the weather and trying to get everyone in and parked safely. I was really irked that the race was not going to be postponed...but then once the race got started I had the best time. I certainly didn't set any PR times but I had a lot of fun.