This was my first ever half Ironman. A race that I eagerly anticipated because it would give me a good indication of my current fitness and help me get prepared for the full Ironman in September.
I got up around 5:00. My being part of a triathlon club means that we have a dedicated rack for the transition area. This means that there is no need to rush to get a good spot in the transition area which translates to 30 min more sleep. I had prepared all my gear the day before so there would be no last minute stress. But when I started loading the bike in my car, I noticed that the rear tired I had just changed a couple of days prior was already flat. This wasn't a good sign. Could there be a slow leak? I inflated it back up to 105 psi and listened carefully for any hissing from an air leak. It seemed okay, so I loaded the bike and was off.
I arrived at Utah Lake at around 6 - 6:15am, pulled all my gear off my beloved Ogio bag and set up my bike. This time I opted to use my Brooks Ghost 5 for the run. My new Zoots are great in transition but they left me with a superficial sking injury on my Achilles last time I wore them. The Brooks have been a work horse of the shoe that I ve used throughout my training for a while now. This will be one of the last time I wear them as they need to be changed.

After a the race briefing, I walked to the shore to prepare for the swim. The wetsuits were not allowed so this would be another first for me: a long open water swim without wetsuit...
The swim was launched in successive age group waves with 2 minutes between each wave.
After a 10 second count down, I was off with the 40-44 age group.
The swim course had been changed at the last minute and I later found out that it was longer than the 1.2miles it was supposed to be.
I felt okay during the swim. Like every time I swim though, I was feeling impatient, bored and wanted to move on to the biking. Boeys looked like they were swimming away from me, never getting closer. I just felt slow. And I was...Pretty much every one passed me on the swim. A few times, I stopped. The water was so shallow you could almost walk in places.
It took me 1:00 to complete 1.38 miles. Slower than in training... Disappointing, but at this point I do not know how to address it. I have been going to the pool almost every day and it does not seem to help wih my speed.
Coming out of the water I grabbed my pre-transition shoes to run to the transition area.

I am not sure this is extremely efficient to use a pair of shoes there but earlier, I had walked bare foot around the transition area and hurt my foot walking on loose gravel / stones. These pre-transition shoes are old trainers which I modified by cutting the heel vertically so they're easier to but on while they still allow me to run when on.
It works well but I think I'll have to modify them further so that they're easier to slide in with wet feet. I think I lost about 20 seconds putting them on.
The plan on the bike was to ride in cardiac zone 3 (low 3) the whole time.
I started a bit too conservatively. In the first mile I felt a bit confused about where to go and still running a mental checklist of things to do (did I forget anything? Did I need to eat something...etc). After a couple of minutes I was finally in the race, stabilizing at my planned pace. 
The bike ride felt great. The temperature was great, in the 70's not too cold or hot and I was passing a lot of people. 
I ate about 300 cal every hour or so and didn't stop at any station. I had just one 30oz between the arm bottle and had packed all my nutrition on the bike.
I averaged every 5 mile split between 20 and 22mph. My ironman goal being 18mph, I felt pretty good about it. The pace felt great too. Somewhat hard, but a hard I could maintain for a while. Only one biker passed me during the first 40 miles of the ride. Then, at mile 42, the my worst nightmare happened..
I was going hard on a straight when I saw Jen, one of my tri-club co-coach, cheering me on. Shortly after that, I prepared to enter a tight right corner.
I inclined the bike accordingly and as I was entering the corner, my front tired slipped a bit on loose gravel, forcing my trajectory to a wider turn. I slowed down as much as I could but the road was fairly narrow and I went off road on very loose gravel. My front wheel completely slid to my left and before I knew it I was on the ground absorbing the kinetic energy with my bare skin on the ground. It hurt. Soon my forearm was bleeding profusely. A few bikers that had taken me miles to pass, passed  me again as I picked up my bike and jumped back on it. I was off again. My time split was screwed. I was in the 18mph range.
As I focused to finish the race hard, I had more bad news. My saddle had become loose and I was rocking back and forth, unable to stay in aero postion. A minute later I started losing nuts and bolts from the saddle and soon the situation went from bad to worse. I had lost all the hardware under the saddle and now it was not attached to the seat post.
I had to balance on the saddle while keeping it between my legs. Loosing the saddle completely and it might be the end of the race for me...
I was counting the miles, not worried about speed anymore, but wondering if I could actually finish this ride.
The ride was a bit short (53.3miles) which I was grateful for. 
My bike split was 2:37

I finally made it to the transition area where a volunteer grabbed the bike and I quickly slid in my running shoes.
I must have had a lot on my mind because I put put my right foot in the left shoe first. A mistake I have never made in my life before (triathlon or not).
I ran out of the transition area pretty fast. It felt good at first but I quickly realized I was running way too hard (I was going under 6:00min/mi).
I gradually slowed down to about 7:00min/mile which progressively turned to about 7:45 after a few miles. 
A good lesson for me...I think I left a lot of energy with that quick start.
I paid for it in the second loop of the course. The heat of the mid-day along with the accumulated fatigued and poor early pacing sapped my energy in the final miles. I also had a bathroom stop at mile 6 which took an extra minute or so, but when nature calls...
I finished the 13.1 miles in 1:38. Not great but not horrible.
In the end, my final time is 5:18
I would have wanted a sub 5 hour time, but I guess that for a beginner triathlete's first effort at a half ironman this is respectable.
I can't help being both disappointed and frustrated at my swim performance.
I think I could do better at the bike too. But given all the unknowns for the pacing and the bike, the accident  and ensuing technical diffulties, I guess the time was respectable. My potential improvement on the run is more marginal. Maybe 5 minutes with better pacing...

There it is.. My first half Ironman. I have mixed feeling with this race. On the one hand, I am happy I could finish it and that I felt good throughout the race. On the other hand, I feel like I could have gone harder at it. I am worried I'll never improve my swim times and therefore never be able to compete for the podium of my age group.
I have to remind myself that this was a training race though. I was there to gain experience and gain the confidence that I'll be able to complete my first Ironman in a few weeks. And from that point of view, I accomplished all my goals.

The time has come for a true test to evaluation my Ironman readiness. I set my alarm for 4:30am tomorrow. By 7:30am I will be starting the 1.2 mile swim. 
Last week end I tested my open water swim endurance with an unprecedented 2.4 mile swim. I finished in 1:49. Pretty slow, but at least I acquired the confidence that I can swim this distance in open water. Tomorrow, however, the wetsuits won't be allowed due to the high water temperatures.
I am not too worried about the swim. 1.2 miles is a distance I have performed numerous time at the pool and a few times in the lake. Sure, my training predicts that I will be slow, conceding maybe a half hour, but I hope I can catch back up on the ride and the run. Even though I improved my endurance in the water quite a bit, swimming speed improvements remain elusive.

The bike ride worries me a bit because it is very hard to memorize with many critical turns. So if the markings are not great, I will be in trouble.
My plan is to stay in low zone 3 for the whole 56 miles. This should leave me with enough stamina to finish with a relatively strong run.
Nutrition will be 200 - 300 cal / hr during the ride and 4 - 5 gels on the run.
This is my very first half and will give me a good indication of where I am at.
Full Ironman is about 4 weeks away now..!!
Full race report to follow...

Wow I cannot believe it. I am less than 2 weeks away from my half ironman prep race and just over 5 weeks from my A-goal Ironman race.
These last weeks of training are critical. I am hitting all the big mileage on the long rides and trying to keep up in the other sports.
It is quite a challenge. I have been making sure to hit my bike mileage / time per the training plan. However, I have not been great at meeting the volume of running and swimming at the same time.
Last week-end, I did my 90 mile ride and wanted to follow with a 20 mile run but the weather was so hot (~95F) that I stopped at just 8 miles. I figured that at this stage, I cannot afford to completely heat exhaust myself which, at the very least, would compromise the next couple of weeks of training. The most critical weeks in fact.
This week end for the first time ever, I came out of my long ride not feeling completely exhausted. The secret to that I learned is intransigent pacing.
I stayed between zones 1.5 and 2.5 (cardio)  the whole 5+ hours.
Yeah, pretty low intensity, but now I know that the only way I can run after a long ride is through good pacing. I will experiment the next few week ends to see how far I can push this pace. I suspect that as long as I stay around mid zone 2 cardio zone, I will be ok. 
During the ChesapeakeMan race, I should be able to control my heart rate very well because the course is very flat (unless there are very strong winds...). This might be more challenging to do on hillier courses.

I am getting a bit worried that I have not done a long run in 3 weeks, so this week, one of my absolute must do is an 18 to 20 miler. I have about 3- 4 weeks of high volume training and I need to have a long run each and every week.

As to the swim, in the last few weeks I have done good keeping up with a nearly daily swim routine. I have managed to swim 5 to 6 times a week.
I am still slow (my speed does not improve that fast) but I feel more comfortable in the water. One of my big concerns is that I have never gone over about 1.2 miles. I really need to find the time to squeeze in a few 1.5 to 2 hour sessions.

Last week end, I had the opportunity to do another tune up race. A short (sprint) triathlon at Herriman Black Ridge.
I had practiced the swim in the pond with my club a couple of days before the race and had not managed to stay in the water more than 10 minutes (without wetsuit). Sooo cold!!! I took me a good 30 minutes to recover from that. Despite my hypothermic adventure, I opted not to wear a wetsuit on race day.
In a sprint triathlon, the race is so short that spending a couple of minutes stripping out of my wetsuit would be a waste of time.
It turned out okay though. I did not feel cold and while I finished at the back of my wave (as expected) I am fairly satisfied with my swim. As the map below suggests, my sighting, while not great yet, is getting better

I got out of the water, grabbed my pre-transition shoes and tried to slide them in. I was still dizzy from the swim and could not keep my blanace. I almost fell over twice trying to put the shoes on.
I definitely lost 30 seconds there...I still think pre-transition shoes are a good idea. For one, I have a very fragile and blister prone skin and the 0.2 mile run out of the water to my bike may actually do some damage to my feet. Further, I realized that with a good pair of shoes, I can actually run much faster out of the water than all the other guys surrounding me. 
I just have to execute it a bit better.
I ran to the bike rack and jumped on my bike while running. Wow, just like a pro. I had done a quick session a week before to learn that skill and I think it is worth doing on a sprint tri, especially since it is not as hard as it looks.
After the swim. I had a lot of catching up to do but I was eager and confident. I had rehearsed the bike course twice a couple of days before and I knew exactly what to do.
The beginning portion of the race is a fast (40mph) downhill section.
While most competitors around me where just letting the bike drift downhill, I attacked hard, pushing on the pedals, determine to pass as many people I could.
At the end of the first mile, while riding downhill at maximum speed my rear tire exploded. I felt the rear wheel shaking and nearly coming off the bike. I controlled my bike trying to slow down without losing my balance.
Soon I came to a stop. I examined the tire and it was completely torn with a 3 inch opening. Race was over...
Some generous people took my bike on their truck and I went to T2 to watch the race.
As I arrived there, the guy leading the race was entering the transition area.
It was Rory, a member of my triathlon club. He was part of the elite wave and seem so have now a comfortable lead on the second man.
As I watched him put on his running shoes, I decided to do the run with him. I ran to the transition area put on my shoes and started the chase.
He was about 200 yards in fron of me coming out of T2 and it took me about a mile to catch up with him. He probably ran this first mile at about 6:00 pace.
Eventually I caught up with him and paced his run  for the remainder of the race.

I was a disappointing race for me of course but I think I made of the most of it. I was happy to see my club win and vowed to represent at the next race (Utah Half).