“Timberman 70.3 Report”
Great race, great support from the community, nice course.
I did not sleep much the night before, but I guess that is to be expected. I had a bagel, two bananas, a pro bar, and a small Gatorade before the swim. I felt decent, all in all.
The Swim had good conditions. No sun, really, and the wind was not too gusty. It was a water start, but the water was only waist-deep. Very clear, nice temperature. It was fairly smooth the first 1/3. The second 1/3 was further off shore and there were some waves to deal with. Nothing terrible, but I swallowed water a time or two. Final 1/3 was fine and I felt good coming out of the water.
The hills on the bike were more rolling than anything. I was expecting the main hill to be a bit more challenging than it was (I was expecting the worst), but the first 10 miles had fairly steady climbs. Aid stations were terrific and had anything you could want. I felt fantastic after the first half of the bike, but then the rains came and I was incredibly conservative on the downhills for the second half. I am not that great of a cyclist and I felt better about costing myself 10 minutes than wrecking on my first 1/2 IM. All in all, it is a nice out and back course that had a fairly difficult beginning and end and a flat middle 35 miles. Really not that challenging of a course as a whole, though.
Run was tough. I started out fine at around a 9 min pace for the first 4-5 miles and then got some heavy cramping in my side. The last 8 miles was pretty rough and I was struggling to get from aid station to aid station. Not sure what the nutrition culprit was, but the Gatorade did not seem to sit particularly well with me. Was very sugary. The run was moderately hilly, but nothing too terrible.
All in all, I felt great about the strategy and preparation. Cliff was tremendous. I think an adjustment to nutrition here or there and a more lucky race day rain-wise would have helped my time pretty significantly, but difficult to complain too much at all.
Psyched to have #1 behind me!