We finished our half ironman triathlon. Overall I felt the race went pretty well. It was pretty much the coldest day of the summer so far and mostly overcast. Had a few worries about rain and cold during the race, but the rain held out for the most part, and then it started raining pretty hard about a minute after Jess finished.
Overall, I felt great in comparison to my first half ironman in Wisconsin two years ago. My finishing time this year was 5:14:41 compared to 6:04:04 at Racine. Jess finished the race in 6:04:54 (sorry Jess, I thought you beat the time from my first half but you just missed it by 50 seconds).
The 1.2 mile swim took place in Aurora Reservoir which is about 45 minutes from our house in east Aurora. The water was cold, so we were both glad to have our wetsuits. Compared to some other open water swims, the water here was clean and deep which made the swim a lot more enjoyable. Jess started 5 minutes before me in the 2nd wave and finished the swim in 35:52. I started in the 3rd wave and finished the swim in 31:41. When I arrived in T1, we got to say a quick hi to each other as we got our bike gear on for the next leg of the race.
We hopped on our bikes for the 56 mile ride through the rolling hills of barren eastern Colorado. For a lot of the ride we headed directly into the wind up and down some pretty intense and long hills. We both felt unprepared for this portion of the race as training levels on the bike were not what they should have been, and 56 miles is a long ways to race. The first half of the ride I was flying pretty fast, but I slowed down on the 2nd half to an overall average speed of 19.0 mph and bike time of 2:56:37. Jess finished her bike leg in 3:18:25 with an average speed of 16.9 mph.
It was a relief to get off the bike and into T2, but I was slightly worried I had expended too much energy. The legs were a bit wobbly and the feet were slightly numb. But, as I exited T2 I started passing all of those bikers that flew by me with their expensive tri bikes. Even though I didn’t feel very fast, I started clocking some miles in the low 7 minute mile pace. Maybe a bit aggressive to start the 13.1 mile run that way, so I ended up slowing down to about 7:45 or 8:00 mile pace. Even so, I still passed people quite a bit. Only 2 runners passed me on the entire run. My average pace for the run was 7:53 with a split of 1:43:12. Jess finished the run at a 9:31 pace at 2:04:29.
I ranked highest in the run, then the swim, and then the bike. Guess I need to work on my biking skills.
We are both glad to be done with training a while so we can focus on other things in life other than 2 workouts a day. While we’ve got no running or tri events planned in the future, I’m sure we’ll get itching soon to start some training.
No pictures of the race this time cause we were both racing with no spectators. But, this picture my parents took from 2 weeks ago at steamboat is pretty much the same thing. Please ignore the bulge, it is not avoidable in wetsuits.
i asked nick to delete all my times but he wouldn’t. it’s embarassing, i move like a grandma! it was a fun race. defiantely a challenge to get faster and train better. i think we both did pretty good for the intensity of our lives right now and everything that has happened in the last month!
Wow Nick and Jess! I am super impressed. What an incredible feat….your times are great and it sounds as if all of your training paid off. Nick, you improved your time from Racine and Jess, you established your personal benchmark that you now can work on surpassing. Congratulations!
WOW! Great job! You did it! And all in the midst of your busy lives. You guys are definitely animals. Thanks, Nick, for posting all the details. Jess, I’ll bet that if you check some gender differentials, you’ll find that you really did “beat” Nick on your first Half Ironman vs. his:) You go, girl! I just heard from Carrie last night……she signed up yesterday for WI next September. Just tempting ya.
Hi guys… Good work with your tri. You guys are amazing. I just read Paul your last sentence about wetsuits. He agrees that wetsuits are not flattering. He’s been wearing his wetsuit lately to go surfing in Lake Michigan. And Jess.. it seems like your times were amazing.. altho i dont know much about times in tri’s but it seems not far off from Nick. Just tell nick he has like a foot of length on you.
I tell paul that too when I am walking slow and he says “you walk so slow” anyways love ya bye
awesome, you two! hopefully you’ve taken some time to relax and refresh since the tri before you’re on to the next thing