Lake Stevens Half Iron Man August 2011

Here we go again with Half Iron #3 and I'm more prepared for this one than I was for the Napa valley one. I had trained better especially on the bike and the hills. It was a beautiful morning and the lake was calm. Although I've done many triathlons I still get the "jitters" race day morning. I layed all my gear out, got in my wetsuit and headed to Lake Stevens where I would begin my 70.3 race. The 70.3 is the total miles I will complete including all three legs: swim 1.2, bike 56 and run 13.1. The swim starts in waves so there is not a heard of people taking off all at the same time. I hear "GO" and I jump in and begin my swim. The first quarter of the swim I'm usually trying to find my rhythm and get my breathing down. I soon realized that there is a rope underwater that is attached to the buoys so that was very helpful. I didn't have to keep looking up to make sure I wasn't swimming "away" from the other racers. My swim was decent but when I approached the end and got out I felt a little disoriented and took a few moments to find my bike.

Once I found my bike I switched gears into bike mode and was on my way. The course was beautiful and the hills were not as bad as I thought they were going to be. A few prior to the race a friend took me out there to ride the course so I would be prepared and know what to expect. By race day they had changed the course a bit and it was actually easier than what we trained on. This is always a good thing! Coming back to the transition area I was mentally preparing myself for the run.

I got changed into my running shoes and began hitting the pavement. I started out a bit slower than expected but a jog is better than a walk. I met some friendly people along the way and then after a few miles my friend Stacey caught up with me and we began to run together. The run course was two loops and there was one major hill along the lake that I wasn't too happy about but once I had done it twice I knew I was home free. We both finished together at a time of 7 hours. I was happy with this time because the difficulty of this course was in between my first (6:30 hours) and second (7:30 hours) half iron.

As usual after the race I celebrated with a couple victory beers!