Steelhead Half-Ironman

Yesterday I did Steelhead in Benton Harbor, MI. My time was 4:52.

The morning set-up was horrible. It was cold, it was raining, and it was dark. I was wearing a T-shirt. In the midst of the other 2,500 competitors I found my spot in the bikes racks, dropped my gear, and tried to find a spot out of the rain. For the next 60 minutes I sat around in the changing rooms with a bunch of guys in wet-suits next to the heavily utilized urinals. It sounds gross but was actually quite nice - warm and dry.

Things I should have at transition: a light rain jacket and a headlamp.

The swim started in waves - I was in wave 15! Nearly the last to go. It was a beach start, on Lake Michigan. The water was perfect, surprisingly, still nearly everyone wore wet-suits. Wet-suits are like wearing flippers and paddles to me - the buoyancy that you get makes a huge difference in the water. I swam strong, passed two waves that started before me, and was the first guy out of the water from my group. Those triathletes are not swimmers.

Transition (T1) was a little slow - getting out of a wet-suit un-aided is nearly impossible. I also left my gear wrapped tight in plastic to protect it from the rain, so I had to fuss with finding everything. After what felt like an eternity I was on my bike. Riding my new Felt B2R for the first time, other than a few light spins around the neighborhood. I learned a good lesson: never ride a brand new bike for the first time in a race situation. At mile 10 I noticed that the bolt holding the handlebars to the stem was coming loose! The bars had some play that made me fear the entire aero unit would swivel down to the front tire. This is not a good thing to have on your mind for the remaining 46 miles. Nonetheless I just kept on riding. The bolt kept riding as well - didn't get any worse amazingly. It was a good ride - I average 22mph for 56miles. Finished in 2:30. Likely my fastest time ever for the bike segment. I attribute this mostly to the Zipp 808's I got for fathers day, and a whole bunch of cycling lately.

The run. I had a fairly fast transition at T2. Put on my visor, changed shoes, rotated my number from back to front, and I was gone. My normal psychological barrier to running started to creep in. Maybe it's because the run always hurts coming off the bike? I struggled to enjoy the run. I was hitting 8:30's for a while (which is slow). There were two big hills, one of which we had to run up twice, as it was a loop run. I finished strong - finally decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and push the last three miles. Averaged an 8:15 pace.

So this was half of an Ironman. I have 5 weeks until the big one.