Half Ironman

I did it!!! I set out to finish a half ironman and it was held last weekend in Sunriver, Oregon. I'd like to say it was so much fun and part of it was but it was sooo hard. I was nervous about the weather being cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon and I was nervous about swimming in a mountain lake when there is still much snow on the mountains.

The temp of the lake was 61 degrees. Better than I thought it would be. with a wetsuit and thermal cap definetly doable. Seeing how far the turn buoys were was intimidating. Our wave started at 9:15. I had a bad start. I was having trouble getting my watch started and leaking goggles. It took almost until the first buoy to get in a rhythm and be comfortable breathing. But once I was in that rhythm everything went well. I finished the swim in 42:12. Had a really long, bad transition of 6 minutes and was on the bike. The bike was a gorgeous 57 miles climbing through the pine trees and babbling brooks and pristine mountain lakes. There was some tough climbing and the altitude wasn't helping. We got to the top of Mt. Bachelor and it was a fast downhill/flat 20 miles to the run transition. Bike time was 3:35:29. The second transistion was better 2:54 (still not great but oh well.) My feet were hurting from the very get go on the run and it was just plodding along to get through 13 miles. I walked through all of the water stations and wiggled my toes to try and get some relief. I was disappointed with my run time of 2:09:54 again I think the altitude and the heat all contributed. I would have been happy if I could have done 2 hours but maybe next time. My total time was 6:36:29.

Sorry no pictures. Didn't take my camera and besides I'm the camera man. Brent hardly ever takes pictures.