I completed my first 70.3 half ironman on Sunday. It was a great race (Musselman Triathlon in Geneva, NY) and I had an amazing time! It was incredibly well run/organized, and the volunteer support was beyond great.

I'm a pretty solid swimmer, definitely more of the tortoise than the hare. With the added buoyancy of a wetsuit I can do ok. When I heard the announcement that wetsuits weren't going to be allowed (water temps were just over 78*), I got a little nervous about making the swim cutoff. I was able to get into a pretty good rhythm and came out of the water ahead of schedule.

The bike is far and away my strongest leg. I had to consciously slow myself down a few times as I was worried about pushing too hard and running out of gas on during the run (which I've done before). A wicked storm (yes, wicked) blew threw and we had to deal with some heavy rains and lightning for about 45 minutes. Visibility became a problem, but the course never became dangerous. I finished the bike in about 3 hours... right on schedule.

Then came the dreaded run. I'm a decent runner up to about 8 miles. 10 miles I can do. Slowly. Over 10 is usually a struggle. My goal for the race was slow and steady... walk the bigger hills and average a 10min/mile over the length of the course, and that's exactly what I did.

All in all, I beat my goal by 24 minutes, had an awesome time!

Official times:
1.2 mile swim: 52 minutes, 17 second
56 mile bike: 2 hours, 59 minutes, 38 seconds
13.1 mile run: 2 hours 15 minutes, 19 seconds

Total time: 6 hours, 16 minutes, 7 seconds