Half Ironman Race

A little after 1:00pm on Sunday, I completed my first triathlon...a half-ironman 70.3 mile long distance race! 1.2 miles of swimming + transition 1 + biking 56 miles + transition 2 + running 13.1 miles...all done in 5 hours 33 minutes and 35 seconds! I far-surpassed my goals of 6 1/2 hours overall and less than 2 hours for the run.

Thank for your words of encouragement. On a GNR note, I had more subdued pre-race pump-up songs since my 17 month old girl was sleeping in her car seat. Better, WTTJ, and ISE were all played at a volume lower than those songs have probably ever been played!
I couldn't get GNR's recent cover of Sailing out of my head during the swim. Runnin' on Empty was being played on the loudspeaker as I set out on my bike portion and that was tough to shake. In between mouthfuls of what I call "regurg." of Gatorade Endurance formula and periodically blowing that off to the side from about mile 10 of the bike to mile 35, I felt pretty good. On the way back, the last half of the bike ride was into the wind, and that was tough.
Not being hydrated enough reminded me of a GNR concert...but GNR doesn't play for 5 1/2 hours so things got a little uglier. I tried getting enough water in on the run, but I could only get so much in...for some strange reason I had a bunch of flat Pepsi at the aid stations as I ran by. Why I chose that over water at times I don't know. When I was at the half-way mark of the run, I was able to figure out that if I only ran the last 6.55 miles as fast as I did the 1st 6.55, I'd be right at 5:30. I felt like I had a chance but as I got to the last 4 or 5 miles of the race I tried looking for that extra gear...it wasn't there! I wanted to ask Sebastian Bach to close this thing out like he did with the end of Nightrain and PC over in Europe, but he wasn't there. I'd have to finish this thing. Once I had 2.1 miles left and needed to do it in 15 minutes to hit 5 1/2 hours, I knew it was not possible......and I had to piss! So, with no trees on the side of the road available, on mile 68+ out of 70.3 miles, I started walking...and pissing my tri-shorts! I must have been crazy because I was laughing to myself watching a police s.u.v. slowly roll down the street my way. He probably didn't care because people barf on the streets all the time with these races...or he probably just didn't want my piss-smelling ass in his backseat! Ha! Okay, so now with a squishy right sneaker I set out to finish this damn thing! 20 weeks of training and the end was in sight! You have no idea unless you've done this how long those last few miles feel like! What an amazing feeling of accomplishment.

Don't worry, immediately after the race, I got to hose down everything so things didn't get too rank.

Once pics are available I'll ask D for some tech. help to get it or them up here for you HTGTHers to see.

Once again, thanks for your support. beer