This swim started really well, and while my time seems really slow, it felt like I passed a ton of people. At the same time, the entire swim felt like deja vu.... every time I looked up, I swear that there was a different guy in a green swim cap and a sleeveless wetsuit, even after I kept passing them all. It was weird, lol.

Anyway, the swim was fairly uneventful. Some contact, a fair amount of failing to swim straight combined with a fair amount of forgetting to sight as I got into a groove.

I'm not sure what has happened with my swim of late, but I had expected a much better pace than this, especially when we were told that we would have a little incoming current behind us on the outside of the island.


Need to work with someone on my swim form, I think.

Came out of the water and went on autopilot. They had wetsuit strippers there, but I decided to just skip them and just did what I've done all summer.... cap & goggles off, wetsuit down to the waist and off the arms as I ran. They had aid stations at each end of the long run to T1, and I took a cup of water at each end. I figured it was better to be ahead of the hydration curve than behind it like I was in San Juan for my first HIM. Made the half mile jog barefoot with the wetsuit still on, running alongside a fellow Team RWB'er named Scott.
Got into T1 and immediately started getting the suit off the legs while putting the helmet on... and that's where things then got a little wrong. The suit got stuck on the heels, and the visor on the helmet wouldn't go down. I quickly stopped messing with the helmet long enough to get the suit off the feet, then went back to the helmet. I thought that one screw was overly tight, so I was fiddly with it trying to find something to let me loosen it. It turns out that a corner of the visor was getting wedged against the edge of the helmet and so it wouldn't budge. Once I figured that out, it was all good, but I easily gave up a full minute-plus with this sequence. With that done, I put on my bike shoes, took down another gel, grabbed the bike and trotted out to the mount line.

I normally run with the bike right past the mount line and jump on while rolling, but the mount line was really close to the transition exit and it was congested, so I came to a stop and climbed onto the bike while stationary, and then was off...

Check the helmet when setting up.
Body-glide/TriSlide the feet & heels... I had ran out of Body Glide that morning while getting dressed before I could do my feet and stuff.

So, this is the section that I really needed to nail a lot better than I did in my first HIM when I completely hosed up my nutrition.
I rolled with two bottles; one behind the seat mixed with four scoops of Perpetuem (Orange & Vanilla Death Flavor) and a Speedfil A2 between the arms filled with water that I would refill at the aid stations. As soon as I got going, I grabbed a Salt Stick capsule from my bento box and took it with some water.

Right off the bat, I could tell the winds were going to be nasty coming back, but on the way out it was a nice boost. I was feeling pretty strong, and felt like I was picking people off pretty regularly, for the first 20 or so miles, but unfortunately, I hosed up my shifting while going up a hill right after Mile 22 and dropped my chain. Not a huge deal, but it was a momentum killer. I had to get off the bike and fight with the chain for about two minutes as it had wedged itself in against the crank arm pretty hard. Got it unstuck and back onto where it belongs, then had to get back up to speed on an uphill. Again, just a momentum killer. It would take me much of the next 20 miles to pick off some of the faster people that passed me. At some point, we were treated to some light rain, but nothing terrible. With my nutrition, I figured that the mix I had was enough calories for what I could absorb in three hours, so I broke it up into thirds. I drank the first third roughly 20 minutes in, the next third around the 75 minute mark, and I forced myself to finish it off before the 2 hour mark to give it all time to settle before the run. I think that it was after the 30 mile mark that we started to really get some headwinds. Between them and complacency and the rain, I had a few lapses where I just started plodding through instead of paying attention to pace, then I'd snap to and pick it back up. The last 10-15 miles I stayed fairly focused and worked. Those last five miles, as expected, royally SUCKED. We were being buffeted by strong winds directly off the lake. I had my FLO90's and disc cover on, and even at 205lbs, I was getting moved around on that road big time. I never had to get out of aero, but I had a few "oh Sh!T" kinda moments for sure.

Shift better.
Beyond that, I don't think I would change much. I feel like I absolutely nailed my nutrition and the effort level. I went hard, but I don't think I was too hard.

Rode up and stopped right at the dismount line with the right leg unclipped and swung over. As soon as I stopped, the left foot came off and I was trotting to my rack. The legs were a bit wobbly and I wasn't doing a stellar job of steering the bike, but I got there and racked it quickly. Helmet & bike shoes off; run shoes, run visor, race belt on; grabbed my little handheld water bottle and I was on my way out of T2, eating a gel on the way.

Nothing. I felt that this was a pretty solid T2. No idea how it stacks up with others, but I'm content with it.

I felt pretty good coming out of T2, and my girlfriend was telling me that I at least *looked* strong, lol The first 2.5 miles, I tried to hold back on the pace, but at the same time it felt tough to do. I knew that I wasn't going to hold those paces (~8:30) for long, but I was having trouble getting the legs to go slower. I paid for that over the next four miles where I went 10, 10, 10.5, 12.5 with lots of walk breaks. That 12:30 mile, at least was me hitting a port-o-potty at the aid station near mile 6-ish. I had been taking one or two waters at every aid station up to that point and it caught up with me. Coming out of the potty, I felt a bit better, but the stomach was still kinda sloshy and I was starting to belch something fierce. I had taken a gel around mile 3, so I took another just before the next aid station where I also grabbed a salt capsule as I didn't bring any with me on the run, but I skipped taking any water. I still had my bottle with me, so I nursed that as needed.
I don't know if it was the gel, the not taking water, the potty break, or just time... but it wasn't long after this that I felt a wee bit better and fell into a groove and was able to just keep moving. The second half of the run was significantly better and while it hurt like hell, I even managed a sub-9:00 in the last mile.

At the edge of the finish chute, there was a Team RWB member there with a flag for me to carry across the finish. I took it and held it high and proud and strided it out around to the finish.

Ummm... train.

I handed off the flag, grabbed my finisher shirt, medal, towel, and hugged my girlfriend; VERY happy to be finished. I then immediately got in line for one of the NormaTec massages, then headed to post-race food followed by a few hours of walking around the park and riding roller coasters :)


I think that this was about the best I could have realistically hoped for myself. I completely nailed my goals, with the exception of that stretch goal.

I feel that I really executed this race almost as well as I could have hoped, I nailed my nutrition on the bike, even if I overdid it a little on the run. I had hoped that I could do a 2 hour half marathon, but it wasn't in the cards... but I came close enough. Given the addition of the extra long run to T1, I fully consider 5:33 to be hitting my goal of a 5:30. This was a GOOD race at a tough distance where I wasn't even really sure what I had in me, and I ended up with a PR for the distance by a hair more than 20 minutes. I'm happy :-)


You just can't beat the show that Rev3 puts on, and when your post-race possibilities include hitting the BEST roller coaster park in the world... well, you can't go wrong.