Big George~~~

Last Sunday I competed in my first 1/2 Ironman since 2000. This is a distance I wanted to step into to prepare for IM Lake Placid in 2012. I took all summer to focus on this race and it paid off!! I did have to take some training time off due to a knee injury so my fitness may have been lacking a little bit. I set some simple goals for this race and hopped to meet them all.

Distances for the race were 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run

Goals

Overall Time - Under 6 hours

Swim Time - Under 40 mins

Bike Time - Under 3 hours

Run Time - Under 2 hours

Big George is a first year 1/2 IM race located in Lake George, NY.

The course was absolutely beautiful, and hilly

My swim went as planned I got a little beat up at the start but then settled into a nice pace and swam 38:03 for what was most likely 1.4 miles so I was happy with that, the swim was long.

I got out on my bike and tried to get settled in as quickly as possible but that was hard to do because the first 5 miles of the bike course are all up hill. After this first climb I finally got racing. I had a great ride however I did not take in enough calories due to my gel flask which was 550 calories falling off my bike after hitting a bump. I would end up paying for this later.

I continued on the bike course and paced myself rather well my average Heart rate for the ride was 149 bpm. I finished the bike course in 2:55 which for 56 miles is 19.1 mph however the bike course measured 58 miles so that 19.1 mph turned into 19.8 which I was really happy with for such a hilly course.

The run started out well, I only wish it could have finished the same way. I felt good for the first 6.5 miles right on pace mile 7 I started to hit the wall. I had to walk one hill and then began running again. I was holding my 9 min per mile pace through 8 miles and then I started to shatter. This is where I needed those 550 calories that I did not get on the bike due to losing my gels. I made it through the miles and suffered. I ran the 13.1 miles in 2 hours 11 mins.

I finished 71 of 250 racers and 17 of 35 in my age group. I met all my goals for the day except finishing my run under 2 hours so that gives me something to focus on. Overall a good day of racing. This is just the beginning of so much more fun to come.