
SWIM
The swim time changed for me, so I had to wait 40 minutes this year to enter the water, with only my age group. It wasn’t as bad as Muncie, people were ALL OVER ME there, I found my space and stride but freaked out a tad because it was wavy, so took the first 500 meters rather slowly. I came out of the water about 20 seconds faster than last year… Oh yea, it was WETSUIT ILLEGAL, which I literally was not expecting at all. So that’s new. Second race sans wetsuit, it was fine.
BIKE
This is where things turn. The bike ride was fine, rolling hills, I remembered that. I felt slower than last year, I was a tad faster though, but I was RIDING IN THE WRONG GEAR basically the whole time. I need to learn more. That sucked, I could’ve broken 3 hours! Many things happened here during these 3 hours. First, I saw a few biker collisions because people were NOT talking.

RUN
This is where the heat really got to me. I just did not feel great on this run, it was too hot and there were no sponges at this race to carry along with. I took these quite slow and walked through every water stop for gatorade and water to pour on myself and eventually pushed through. The damn giant hill you have to walk up twice is what got me!
OVERALL:
SWIM: 47 minutes
T1: 6 minutes (took my TIME)
BIKE: 3:04
T2: 5.2 minutes
RUN: 2:26
This was really to check in on the full ironman to see where I’d be at, it’s going to be hard but mental strength is the hardest part and you just have to get into a groove! Before then? On to Chicago Triathlon, our signature race for Ballou Skies, and the MOST fun because we’re surrounded by friends! Want to help us reach our charity goals? Donate here.